


beyond the sea

by powelli



Category: BioShock, The Creatures | Cow Chop RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1950s, Bioshock AU, Drug Use, Gun Violence, Knowledge of bioshock not super necessary, M/M, Revolutionaries, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-03-30 14:48:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 53,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13953879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/powelli/pseuds/powelli
Summary: His hand shifted across the sheets and he tried to move his hand down the side of the mattress as inconspicuously as possible, but the gun was too far.“I wouldn’t do that,” said the stranger, and Aleks knew he visibly relaxed. It was Nova. He was safe. Nova’s silhouette neared him slowly, taking tactile steps around the bed until he was standing beside him, and now Aleks could really see his face in the blue light, eyebrows furrowed and cheekbone bruised. The light shone off of the shotgun sitting tightly in his hands, pointing directly at Aleks’ head.





	1. prequel

April 24th, 1957, 05:22 PM, High Street, Building 112.

Reported by Charles Price.

**PARASITES DEMAND RIGHTS**

This afternoon, in a stunning spur of events, protesters gathered around Andrew Ryan’s private office in a horrifying display of parasitic protest. It is estimated that over 200 gathered, disrupting families and businesses from their day-to-day activities and work in Hephaestus. They ignited the scene using _Incinerate!_ plasmids, not intended for parasite use.

At the front of this scene, stood a man known as Nova, the leader of this movement and known from the events of 1955’s summer, in which he and his followers brutally attacked Fontaine Futuristics, an establishment well respected for it’s tolerance towards the workers of Rapture.

Although Nova’s identity is not known, he is believed to work in the docks, where he was spotted leading rallies only a few months ago and is believed to be a past resident of Inner Persephone’s North Detention Wing.

Any parasites caught will immediately be trialed and punished.

If any resident has any information regarding Nova or his followers, or any suspicions of a loved one being involved in the cause, please report it to your local police station.


	2. prequel

1958

                                                Aleks was late.

That was all that ran through his head as he slid between crowds of morning commuters, businessmen grumbling at him and mothers crying out loud as he gently shoved past them. He didn’t have time to throw any more than a rushed ‘sorry!’ over his shoulder before he was sliding around a corner, nearly crashing into a stern woman leading a group of twelve little sisters in two rows, six on each side.

Their disembodied yellow eyes and greyish skin triggered an involuntary shudder to rush through Aleks. _Creepy little things,_ his father used to call them when they were first announced to the public, followed shortly by _but good for the economy, that’s for sure_ and Aleks couldn’t tell if he agreed or not. They walked past him in strict formation, staring at him as they passed and then simultaneously snapping their heads forwards. The sight was enough to unsettle Aleks but a quick glance at his watch subsided the feeling and replaced it with pure panic, because he was now three minutes late.

He passed an electronics store on his way, and faltered for a moment when he met the serious eyes of Andrew Ryan, delivering some sort of propaganda message to the public, silenced through the thick display glass. He was the founder of Rapture, a man many adored and that Aleks had met more times than he could count, him being a close friend of his father. With countless songs, paintings, and even plays dedicated to him and the miracle of the underwater city, it was somewhat difficult to avoid his piercing gaze.

He rushed forward again in a sprint, tugging along his deep brown satchel and trying to avoid slipping on the recently cleaned floors. The jingle of an announcement from a loudspeaker overhead, the first of the day, presumably, and the first of many, sounded out; a soft female voice advertising some sort of new plasmid, but it was unheard to Aleks, whose heartbeat rang in his ears as he pushed open the rotating doors of the office, stumbling into the lobby and pausing to catch his breath.

He could faintly hear the beginning notes of the newest song in Rapture playing through tinny radio speakers, and the faint chatter of the lobby helped ground him as he stared intently at the ugly red-and-gold pattern of the carpet. When he felt his lungs stop tightening and the blood stopped rushing in his ears, he raised his head and exhaled once more, before straightening up and fixing his shirt, fearing the consequences if he didn’t sign in as soon as possible.

“You’re late,” he heard a voice say as soon as he reached the front of the line forming at the front desk, and he looked up to meet the eye of Anna, who was patiently sitting at the lobby desk, scrawling on an envelope hurriedly. Her hair was tied up today, and she was wearing a lilac dress, the same one Aleks had seen when his father forced him to attend the seasonal Rapture Fashion Fair. He had bought it for her, for her birthday – he remembered now. She finally put her pen down and looked up at him, a soft smile on her face as she sorted through the assortment of cards on her desk and withdrew his, handing it to him over the desk. “I won’t tell,”

“Thank you,” he responded, real gratefulness lacing his words as he took the card and clutched it in one hand, spinning on his heel and jogging to the elevator, its doors about to close. A hand reached out to prevent the doors from sliding shut, however, and Aleks shuffled into the tight space, mumbling his thanks. The man who had prevented the closing of the doors was a stranger to Aleks, which wouldn’t be unusual, but this man seemed like he didn’t work here at all. Amidst the firm businessmen in suits and ties, this man stood out in his greying shirt and ugly dungarees, and especially in the thick black boots that was leaving smudges of water on the floor of the elevator.

Aleks caught sight of himself in the pristine mirrors that surrounded the elevator and realised he didn’t look much better. He looked younger than he was, brown hair messy and refusing to cooperate with the styling gel Aleks had forced onto it in a rush that morning. His white shirt was rumpled underneath his maroon waistcoat, black tie skewed. He subconsciously straightened it and brushed down his blank pants, dimly aware of the shine of his shoes.

The man beside him nodded his head along to the soft jazz music filling the elevator, and Aleks found himself subconsciously doing the same until the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, revealing Aleks’ floor. He found himself unsure of how the man knew his floor, but the anxious churn in his gut reminding him of his lateness spurred him to ignore the situation and to hurry on to sign in and to begin work.

He hurried towards the already faltering line of other employees lining up to sign in and he slid across the sterile white floor to screech to a halt next to his closest friend Trevor, who immediately startled when Aleks shuffled into the line next to him, amidst groans of protest from the people behind them.

“You can’t keep doing that,” Trevor began, mid-yawn as he inserted his sign-in card into the small machine perched on the wall. He pressed a mint green button and the machine made a quick clamping noise before the newly stamped card was being tugged out and placed into it’s small folder on the wall, marked ‘T. Schmidty’. Aleks did the same and hurried after Trevor, who was anxiously checking his watch.

“Well you’re late too, so-“ Aleks started, before he was interrupted by the obnoxious blare of an alarm, signalling the start of the work day. “Uh, where are you stationed today?”

“Office C,” Trevor responded, shrugging his shoulders and making a futile attempt to smooth out the creases in his chestnut brown knitted waistcoat. “But I’ll see you at lunch, right?”

“Yeah, right.” After a short nod and a murmur of goodbye, they turned and went on their separate ways. They were closer friends than anyone would think, but mornings were tough, especially where they worked. A government building was what it said on public records, but that felt like an oversimplification to Aleks. The building was huge, bigger than anyone could anticipate, and its winding corridors and passages made way to labs, offices, and even massive unused spaces nobody could figure out the use for.

Aleks’ job was to, well, do nothing, really. He was only here because his father, a high-ranking executive of sorts, had insisted he took the job for some ‘much-needed work experience’, as he had put it. What he meant was ‘your mother spoiled you because we dumped you in an isolated city with no escape, and now you need to work because otherwise I will stop offering financial support’. It was an unpleasant scenario, but Aleks still appreciated the money the job offered – not a lot, but enough – and he supposed it wasn’t terrible having some reason to wake up every morning.

So, he continued down the vast hallway, inclining his head to the right to gaze out of the rectangular windows that offered an admittedly remarkable view – miles upon miles of deep blue water stretched across Aleks’ vision, only disrupted by the presence of sea life and the towering buildings framed with neon signs and lights. He supposed Rapture wasn’t the worst place to live, despite what the lower classes may say.

Eventually, he reached the door marked ‘Office B’ and pushed the plain door open, wincing at the chemical smell that greeted him – a custom for the offices, especially Office B, which was the lab division.

He was met with the sight of exhausted employees rapidly completing paperwork, others franticly writing documents on typewriters, and some even just stamping ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ on papers in bright red ink. As Aleks stepped into the room, he was almost pushed out of the way by a group of three or four scientists, their lab coats glistening with some bright yellow liquid, excitedly chattering as they rushed across the office before disappearing into the door leading to Observation Bay 223.

“Good morning, Joe,” Aleks greeted, finally setting down his satchel on a free desk opposite his friend, watching with mild interest as several repairmen crowded around a crack in the thick glass of a window on the far wall. “What happened this time?”

“They say a break-in attempt,” Joe replied from the opposite desk, already beginning his paperwork of the day. However, he looked up to follow Aleks’ gaze, an amused smile dancing on his face. “Third one of the week,”

Aleks snorted in response, reclining in his chair and running a hand over his face. He sat there for a moment, watching the rapid movement of Joe’s pen. “What’re you working on that’s so important?”

“I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to. Some sort of urgent matter, the details are pretty vague.” The other responded, but he seemed to finish his task as he enclosed the envelope and scrawled a number on the back, before sliding it across the desk so it was tucked in the corner. There was a comfortable silence for a moment, accompanied only by the quiet chatter of the office and the occasional creaking of the building, which was to be expected in a city situated at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

So, Aleks went through with the first half of his day. He sat and daydreamed, only pretending to do work when a supervisor slid between desks and peered over his shoulder with a hum. Soon enough, the bell rung for lunch and Aleks grabbed his satchel, impatiently waiting for Joe before they were walking towards the canteen together. There they met Trevor, who was looking more drained than ever, at their usual table, and as they sat and ate, they couldn’t help but gaze out into the blue abyss shown through the small portholes on the wall.

“You hear about the windows in Office B, Trevor?” Aleks questioned, picking at the grey fish on his plate with mild disgust.

“Uh, yeah. Kind of. Steven from C tried asking about it but last I saw, he was being ushered into our supervisor’s office, so I don’t think it went well,” He shrugged half-heartedly, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand. He was slumped in his seat, barely touching his plate of food. Aleks and Joe exchanged a short glance but said nothing.

Soon enough, the alarm sounded again, and everyone in the canteen were shepherded to their offices for the day, leaving the canteen deserted in a matter of minutes. When Aleks found himself back at his desk, the window was patched up with temporary measures, tape and clear bags preventing any more water from leaking through. It was then, staring at the messily applied tape, that the extent of his boredom and tiredness hit him like a sledgehammer. He felt the pen drop from his hand and he instead moved it to rest his head in, elbow pressed against the desk and head still inclined towards the window. He barely heard Joe calling his name until the third time.

“Aleks?” He jolted up, looking at Joe with owlish eyes.

“Sorry, sorry. What?” He leant forwards, straining to hear Joe over the chatter of the office.

“I was wondering if you could take _this_ to the lobby?” He held out the envelope he had been so urgently writing on.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, sure.” Aleks nodded slowly, taking the envelope and standing from his slouch, wincing at the click his back made. Joe threw him a sheepish smile before Aleks found himself pushing open the door again and stepping out into a sterile corridor, walking at a relaxed pace towards the elevator. He caught sight of the time on his watch – almost precisely half-past-four, meaning he only had two hours left of this metaphorical hell before he was permitted to leave. That was a relief.

He stepped into the small elevator once it had been called through the switch of a lever, and once inside, he gently pushed the button indicating the ground floor. Jazz played delicately through the pristine speakers, but it was short-lived as the doors slid open and Aleks stepped out into the near-deserted lobby, greeting Anna with a nod.

“Joe said to deliver this to the lobby. It, uh, looks important, so…” Aleks trailed off and instead chose to just slide it across the desk towards her. Anna seemed to squint at it for a moment before she made an understanding sort of look.

“Oh, yes. Forgot about this,” She smiled somewhat apologetically before getting up and opening the door to the backroom, leaving Aleks leaning against the desk. Turning on his heel, he leant against the ledge of the high desk and idly listened to the cheerful Rapture Reminders that whistled through the room. He studied the room out of boredom more than actual interest, counting heads.

There were two businessmen negotiating in the waiting area, an old woman reading a fashion magazine a few seats away, a secretary taking her lunch break at her desk a few tills away, and then Anna and Aleks.

Speaking of Anna, she soon returned, clutching an identical envelope, except it had a different number scrawled on the back, and was enclosed in a sealed bag.

“This is… top secret, Aleks,” she said quietly, handing it to him carefully. “You’re not even meant to have it, but just make sure it gets to Office B, and quickly. Understood?”

Aleks nodded slowly, clutching the bag and giving her one last smile, before turning and walking to the far wall, pressing the button to call the elevator. Another Rapture Reminder rang in his ears, and he mouthed along to it with exaggerated and mocking head movements, having heard it enough to memorise it by now. He distantly heard the sound of the front doors opening and then rapid footsteps, and then his blood ran cold at the sound of a menacing yell echoing around the room.

“Everybody, hands up! On the ground!” The voice yelled, the unmistakeable sound of a gun being cocked following the demands. Indistinct yelling filled the room, along with the fearful screams of some of the previous inhabitants of the room. Aleks didn’t dare turn around, instead tucking the bag as best as he could into his trouser pocket, and slowly raising his arms above his head, wincing as the elevator finally dinged and the doors slid open. “Don’t fucking move!” The voice ordered again, and Aleks nodded pointedly, eyes shifting over to the elevator’s emergency button. If he could just-

Before the thought even finished his mind, he felt a small hand at the back of his shirt force him to the ground, the cold metal of a pistol to his head sending a shock through his body.

“Turn around, so we can see your face,” a softer voice demanded, stern and almost mocking. Aleks nodded again, at a loss for words as he shuffled around on his knees, carefully peering up at the attacker. It was a woman, short and young, with flowing hair around her shoulders and a red bandanna hastily tied around her right arm – the arm that was still holding a gun to Aleks’ head. At this angle, Aleks could look around again, and this time he spotted a few new additions to the room.

They were all wearing identical red bandanas, some on their head, some on their arm, some even tied around their guns. Aleks’ eyes slid over to Anna, who, he realised with icy shock, was being threatened by the man Aleks had encountered in the elevator only a few hours ago. The old woman in the corner was being mostly ignored by another man, who instead chose to focus on the two businessmen, who were unloading their wallets with shaky hands as the man barked sharp orders at them. The other secretary was being stared down by a tall, lanky man who, in contrast to the others, was speaking in an even, calm voice, but was still reducing the poor woman to tears.

Aleks felt the events start to blur together in a panicked hue, his head feeling light and confusion beginning to set in in the form of a heavy blanket, suffocating him. He was distantly aware of his heartbeat in his ears and the sudden dryness of his mouth as he stared down the barrel of a gun. He squeezed his eyes shut instead, focusing on the creaks of the building, on the roughness of the carpet, on anything other than this.

He was jolted by a hand grabbing the front strands of his hair, and he focused his eyes to study the man crouching in front of him. He felt too panicked to intake any details, but he was faintly aware of the man mocking him, before he stopped suddenly.

“Wait a second… Brett, get over here,” he ordered. His voice was accented. It was nice, Aleks supposed, which was a strange thing to think about a man literally about to kill him. “Is this…?”

The man from the elevator came into Aleks’ hazy field of vision, squinting. “That’s him, all right..” He responded, one hand grabbing at Aleks’ jaw and pushing his face to turn both ways. The movement was uncomfortable, and Aleks found just enough energy to shake his head enough to escape the grip, even though he could feel the room swaying.

“Has he – did you take something, kid?” The older man asked, but shrugged when Aleks offered no immediate answer. “Hey, you listening?”

The other man was still crouched in front of Aleks, watching him with careful eyes. Aleks found his eye contact and maintained it, and somehow it grounded him. He inhaled and focused on not slurring his words, being sick, or fainting.

“Let me go. Please,” He begged, head drooping and hair falling in front of his eyes. His face suddenly felt red hot and his eyes stung, embarrassingly enough.

There was a sudden silence in the room as even the chatter from others had evaporated suddenly. Aleks slowly raised his head and realised with a shudder that he was still being stared at. Still, the two men maintained strict eye contact, the silence in the room only broken by the cheery jingle of an announcement abruptly playing out on the lobby speakers.

“Being the best at what you do can _really_ take it out of you – so unwind at Fort Frolic! Gamble, shop, take in a show, or even _meet a new friend_! All at Fort Frolic! _Fort Frolic – where the best and brightest celebrate success._ ”

The carefree voice of the announcer cut out, and Aleks was back with silence. His vision had become blurry, so he blinked a few times to eliminate tears and focused his eyes again to see the stern face of his attacker back at him. The man stood slowly and wiped his hands on his pants, seeming as if he was going to back off. Just that thought made Aleks relax considerably, but before he could look up again, the quick swing of a gun made contact with his head and he crumbled in a heap on the carpet, blood already seeping through his hair.

He was only vaguely aware of his body being heaved up and carried away, the sound of rapid footsteps passing by, and someone screaming his name.

Then he slipped into darkness.


	3. the great pretender

Aleks jolted awake in an unfamiliar bed – if you could call it a bed. It was a stuffy pile of dusty blankets, patterned in black and white; a cow print, Aleks recalled with slow and somewhat disgusted realisation. Lifting his gaze from the offensive pattern, Aleks peered around the dimly lit room – it was plain, the lack of décor or furniture a stark contrast from the surroundings Aleks was used to awakening in. The room didn’t even have a window, for God’s sake.

He raised his hand slowly, inspecting it. He was shaking, he noted, but it wasn’t cold. His hand was barely visible in the limited light, but he brought it to his face to sweep away locks of hair from his forehead, grimacing at the dampness of his forehead.

He caught his breath before sitting up straight, the bones in his body cracking as he shifted from the discomfort of his previous resting place. Swinging his legs to plant on the dusty floor, he shakily stood, swaying dangerously until he placed a hand on the closest wall, steadying his body as he nauseatingly adjusted to the change. Did they drug him? His memory felt hazy, sure, and his muscles didn’t seem to want to work for the time being. However, he fought the feeling and edged along the wall to the door, which was shut. He placed a pale hand on the rusting doorknob and twisted it, to find it locked. Typical.

With a huff, he slumped against the wall and breathed slowly and evenly, coughing at the dust filling the air. Waiting was agony, but soon enough, after ten minutes or so, Aleks picked up the noise of footsteps nearing the door and the unmistakeable noise of the door being unlocked, heavy bolts lifted. The door opened slowly, golden light streaming into the dark room. Music suddenly streamed into the room – loud, almost drowned out by heavy conversation.

The room was suddenly brightened, and Aleks could see the outline of the blanket he had emerged from, a small cabinet against a wall, and crates stacked dangerously upon one another. He squinted to read the writing on the crates before he was again distracted by the newcomer.

Aleks turned his head upwards to frown at the intruder, who pushed the door open further, light framing them and shadowing their face until they crouched opposite Aleks, pushing a cup of water towards him.

“Comfy?” He joked, but his tone was dry.

Aleks practically lunged for the water and drank half of it desperately, despite the rational portion of his brain telling him not to. He recognised this man as the leader of the little coup that had attacked the building, and, by association, he supposed, himself – as the memory came back, he felt the sharp ache of the side of his head and raised a slow hand to feel the area – his hair was matted with blood, the wound hastily treated with a bandage wrapped around his head.

“Don’t touch that, you’ll make it worst,” The attacker opposite him sharply said, with a tone demanding enough that Aleks immediately withdrew his hand, frowning at the flakes of blood that left residue on his fingertips. “You smoke?” He asked, and when Aleks looked up, he was nudging a pack of cigarettes towards him, one already in his mouth.

“Uh, no,” He responded, eyebrows furrowing. It was a lie.

“Fine by me,” His captor shrugged, lighting the cigarette, but not with his fingers. This man wasn’t using plasmids, unusual in Rapture, but similar to Aleks, who had never seen the appeal in the tonics, despite consistent pressure from, well, everyone. He took a drag before removing the cigarette, rolling his eyes as Aleks’ hand began moving on its own accord to feel his head wound.

“I’m Nova,” he offered, holding out his hand that wasn’t placing the cigarette back between his lips. Aleks shook his hand, noting the soot on the other man’s hand, fingertips blackened by the filth. He spoke around the cigarette, releasing his hand and brushing his hand on his trousers to remove the blood. “Care to tell me your name, sir?” He asked easily, sitting at last and messily crossing his legs as he blew out more smoke into the stuffy air.

“You already know my name,” Aleks huffed, shifting away from this Nova.

“Hate to say I don’t,” Nova responded quickly, eyes shifting to the side, but not in a nervous way. “I knew your face, sure. But not your name,”

Somehow that wasn’t a surprise. Aleks had done his fair share of propaganda involvement, primarily by force of his mother. Seeing his face in a magazine advertising the latest suit wasn’t as much a shock as it was that he worked in a _government building._ But his name wasn’t ever involved – his father had a degree of protection over the lives of his wife and only son, and that was evident with how little was said about them when it was reported in the papers of the progress of his father’s business, or of his newest breakthrough. Somehow, he doubted that most of Rapture even knew that he had a son.

“…Sir is fine,” He was testing his luck now, he knew that, but he’d be damned if he was going to reveal his name to this total stranger, who, more than likely, was a psychopath.

“Sir it is,”

It was then that Aleks took a moment to intake the features of this peculiar man. He wore his hair back in a plain bun, not dissimilar to the hairstyles particularly fashionable among young women, especially of the working class. His skin was tanned, a sharp contrast against Aleks’ pasty complexion, but still a sickly pale, presumably due to the lack of sunlight not only in Rapture, a feature many residents who couldn’t afford tanning plasmids shared, and he wore a plain white shirt hastily tucked into black trousers, suspenders hanging off his shoulders and by his hips.

They stared at each other for a moment, and Aleks felt his jaw tense. With fear, maybe, but he wouldn’t dare admit it.

The man had dark eyes, but they were soft still. Perhaps it was the head wound, but Aleks felt at ease with him.

“Why am I here?” Aleks forced out, sipping at his water again when his throat protested. If he focused, he could hear the faint noise of music from outside the door, quite a distance away, as well as distant chatter. “Where am I?”

“Think of yourself as… an assist. We needed a person of significance – not utmost importance, but considerable status – to help our cause. Hostage is a shitty word, but…” He trailed off with a smile, flicking ash onto the floor. Aleks felt his heart drop, and he ran a shaky hand across his face, all feelings of trust discarded as quickly as they appeared.z

“You’re uh, you’re not gonna let me go?” He managed, feeling sick to his stomach all of a sudden.

“What? No, you’re free to go,” He responded, taking a final drag of his cigarette before grabbing Aleks’ wrist, pulling his arm out and pressing the cigarette into his forearm to put it out, ignoring Aleks’ cry of protest. It stung like hell.

“What the fuck?” He exclaimed, forcing his arm away and inspecting the damage – a small burn mark, contaminated with ash. He immediately attempted to brush off the ash. “What was that for?”

There was no response.

Aleks tensed then, pushing out his chest and, although he had never been in a fight in his life, he swung a fist at the man. His movements, however, were sluggish and uneven, and he missed by miles. Nova laughed, a real laugh, loud and mocking.

Aleks glowered with rage.

Nova shrugged a shoulder towards the door, fixing his suspenders before holding out a hand for Aleks to grab in order to stand. He didn’t take it, instead pushing himself off the ground and jolting to his feet. He forced his eyes to adjust to the bright light before he followed the other man down a flight of rickety stairs – because what choice did he have? - and to another door, which he pushed open to reveal a large room, filled with tables, chairs, drinks, and people, at least two hundred.

He felt anxiety flare up inside him as his eyes flicked around the room. Red banners hung against grey walls, and people cheered and yelled over drinks. He stood there for a moment, only moving when he caught himself standing alone, Nova already disappearing into the crowd.

He followed Nova through the masses of people, watching with discontent as people greeted him enthusiastically, resent building in his chest. These people – whoever they were – were not his friends. They eventually reached a table of four people, all of whom Aleks recognised from the lobby incident. The woman who had held a gun to his head only a few hours – days? - prior held out a hand with a wide smile, introducing herself as Lindsey. She was pretty, with brown hair and large eyes.

“How’s your head?” She asked cheerfully, shaking his hand. “Not too bad, I hope,”

“It’s fine, I guess,” Aleks responded unsurely, releasing her hand and mumbling his thanks when a chair was drawn at the table for him.

The man to his left held out a hand for him to shake. He was handsome, and had short, sandy blonde hair and moles across the lower half of his face. His eyes were stern, but he had a friendly smile.

“Asher,” He said simply, shaking Aleks hand.

Aleks turned his attention to a man across the table, who was standing and leaning forward to reach his hand. He was tall, with wide glasses and short hair.

“I’m Jakob,” He introduced himself, shaking his hand enthusiastically. He looked to be the youngest of the group, but he fit in well.

Finally, Aleks went to shake the hand of the man opposite him, who was possibly the oldest. He immediately recognised him as the man from the elevator.

“We’ve met,” The man started, not taking his hand and instead turning his attention back to the small device he had been fiddling with. “I’m Brett,” He said dryly, and Aleks slowly lowered his hand when he realised he wasn’t going to get a response.

Aleks settled back in his chair, grateful for the loud scenery – it almost comforted him, reminded him of parties his father forced him to attend. He turned in his seat to really intake the environment and caught sight of a group of musicians arguing over sheet music light-heartedly, sipping beer all the while. The table closest to them was occupied by a similar group of people, and a petite blonde woman caught his staring and leant over her chair to shake his hand, grinning widely and introducing herself. He didn’t quite catch her name over the loud atmosphere and the beginning notes of music starting up again, but he smiled anyway and pretended he had any ounce of knowledge of what she was excitedly saying to him.

He was alerted back to his own table when Lindsey pushed a drink in front of him – beer, it looked like; a drink his father tutted at, remarking it was for the poor and the delinquents. He sipped it after thanking her (grimacing at the bitter taste)  and startled at the sudden blare of a trumpet. He turned his attention back to the small band, who now had a crowd gathering before them, couples and groups of people swaying and chortling to the music. The music was upbeat and nearly deafening, but it was better than any orchestra Aleks had ever heard.

He heard to scuff of a chair to his right and found Nova, who he still couldn’t trust or even remotely understand, resisting Lindsey’s insistent invitations to dance with a laugh. After a moment, however, he rose from his seat and was led to the newly cleared space designated as the area for dancing, and, still with a beer in his hand, spun and twirled Lindsey whilst they laughed breathlessly. She tripped once, and he caught her with a yell, and they were beside themselves in giggles after that. Aleks lost sight of them once they joined the avid circle of dancers rapidly twirling each other around the space, spilt beers and amused grins a common sight in the chaos of what could be presumed to be a dance.

Aleks found himself watching them until his attention was turned back to the table by Jakob, who was yelling at Asher about something with a wide grin on his face. Brett was still sitting there with a faint smile tugging at his features as he watched the two quarrel, chuckling under his breath. Before he could even begin to understand what they were yelling about, Aleks felt a hand on his shoulder and he twisted around to see Nova there, out of breath but smiling, with Lindsey by his side. Lindsey sat back down, swatting a hand at Jakob while he playfully mocked her as Nova ushered Aleks up.

“We’re going for a walk,” He said shortly, grinning.

“I’m going home,” Aleks retorted, but stood nonetheless, giving a careful nod towards the other occupants of the table. He stood, cringing at the flakes of blood that had fallen onto his previously spotless slacks, brushing them off uncomfortably. But he followed Nova through the vast crowd again until he was stepped out into Rapture, foot meeting familiar tile.

 The music faded out and erupted into a different song as Aleks was led out of the vast space onto the street, and as soon as the door closed behind them, it became dead silent. From the exterior, he could actually identify the place as a warehouse of sorts, perhaps once a factory, judging from its tall walls and thick windows, as well as the sheer size of the building. He found himself wondering how this little coup even managed to take over the building.

He could also make sense of where he was – and it was nowhere familiar, but obviously on the lower-class side of Rapture. This was not what he was used to. He carefully avoiding stepping on a woman cowering against a building, ratty coat curled around her and hollowed cheekbones littered in scars and poverty. Aleks, despite the guilt building in the pit of his stomach, turned his eyes away, instead focusing on the shine of his shoes against the tiles of the floor.

“Walk with me,” was all Nova said, before he started walking down the street, lighting a cigarette on the way. His face was lit up by the flame in the near dark of the street, only accompanied by a flickering street light. They walked in silence for a few minutes, only pausing when Nova began conversation with a woman smoking a cigar on the corner, who watched Aleks with unrelenting disapproval. She was thin and glaring, hollowed cheeks bruised with flat yellow marks. Then, there was silence again, until they were a few streets away and Aleks could see a crowd of people gathered around a wall. Curiosity peaked, he peered at the object of interest as they passed and stopped when he realised what it was.

A sign, the size of the entire wall, had been hung up. It was bright red, only interrupted by a black-and-white ink drawing of the very man beside him, distinctly similar aside from the man in the picture’s hair, which was waving around his shoulders, framed with the words ‘NOVA, VOICE OF THE PEOPLE’. He looked to Nova for confirmation, who only shrugged in response and lowered his head when a passer-by came too close.

There were more posters surrounding it, plastered with slogans such as ‘NOVA; HE’S YOUR PAL’ and ‘NOVA; HE’S LOOKING OUT FOR YA!’, both accompanied by a cartoonish image of the man himself with a thumbs-up, a stark contrast from the terror of a man beside him. The posters were peculiar and it seemed quite an aged ordeal, judging from the estranged complaining from the crowd in front of them.

Aleks knew this cause well enough – it had been reported countless times, stories of malicious parasites and their deadly intentions, stories to scare young children from straying too far from their parents.

On further inspection, the group were attempting to take the sign down, and judging by their muttering, they weren’t succeeding. Nova turned on his heel to continue walking, and lingered for a moment before he jogged after Nova, the image of the posters burnt into his mind.

“You’re… a revolutionary?” Aleks asked quietly, staring at the floor beneath his feet as they walked on. “You’re Nova? _The_ Nova?”

“Yes,” He responded shortly, blowing out smoke into the air. “Took you long enough to realise,”

Aleks felt something like rage swell in his chest, but he supressed it, remembering the sting of the cigarette burn on his forearm which, upon a glance, was still reddened. It was also then, staring at the illuminated and stern face of Nova on that street corner that it occurred to him the absurdity of this man – of whom had been playfully dancing to swing music no less than thirty minutes ago.

“Okay, so why me?” Aleks asked again after a moment, raising his head to look at Nova as they began to walk again. It was in the light of the outside that he could see the tiredness in this man. The soft creases underneath his brown eyes and his permanently disgruntled expression was a clear indicator of that.

“I told you, you’re-“ Nova began, but was cut off again by Aleks.

“No, I mean,” Aleks trailed off, huffing. “Why keep me around? Surely, it’d be more, uh,” He paused, looking for the right word as his mind went blank. “-beneficial, or something, to just kill me and make your _stupid_ fucking statement,” He felt frustration again, hot and unrelenting, and curled his hands into fists at his sides.

There was another heavy pause between them, before Nova hummed, almost in consideration, putting out his cigarette and flicking it onto the ground. He stared Aleks down sternly, eyebrows furrowed, but not angrily. He looked almost determined, and more passionate than aggravated.

“Listen,” he started, and Aleks prepared himself for the lecture he was about to receive. “Rapture’s fall is inevitable. Ryan made sure of that a long time ago. You can either fall victim to it, or you can survive it. And I feel like maybe, for once in your life, you want to fight for something and survive to see the end.”

It took a moment for Aleks to register the words, but he blinked once, twice, considering what he had said and he found, to his own horror, that he agreed.

Instead of voicing this, he scoffed.

They stopped suddenly, and Aleks raised his gaze to see the entrance to the bathysphere station. He turned back to see Nova, who held out his hand for him to shake. Aleks hesitantly took it and felt something heavy get slipped into his grip.

“I’ll see you very soon, sir,” Was all Nova said, before he turned on his heel and walked back up the street.

Aleks checked his hand. A folded red cloth rested there, accompanied by a folded five dollar bill, enough for the fare home. He watched him walk away for a few seconds, before greeting the attendant softly and paying for his ticket home.

The crimson item should’ve felt like a curse, but it was almost a ticket to freedom in Aleks’ hand.

And, as he solemnly tucked the material into his pocket and watched the door to the bathysphere swing closed and eject into the deep blue expanse of water, he supposed, with a start, that perhaps he did want to survive to see the end for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew! not so sure about this chapter but thank you for all the sweet comments on the last chapter! <3


	4. la javanaise

He was drowning.

Aleks gaped for air in the open water, bubbles floating upwards from his parted lips as his hands grasped for something, anything, to hold onto. His hands simply found nothing, though, and he was being dragged further down into the deep blue sea, eyes watering somehow and body becoming limper and limper. A fish swam past his vision, golden-green scales shining in the sunlight streaming from overhead. His chest was seizing up now, tightening and wrenching at his body. He desperately swatting his hands once more, body giving a weak kick before he was motionless, lifeless body floating in nothingness.

He lurched awake.

Aleks was back in his bed at home, in Olympus Heights, in safety. He groped at the cream-coloured sheets beneath him and slowly sat up, cold sweat pooling at the back of his neck and dampening the silk. He shook his head half-heartedly as if in an attempt to clear his head and the fogginess of the day before and focused his eyes on his watch, balanced carefully on his bedside table, blinking a few times to clear his eyesight.

The clock read 6:30AM, but it was a Sunday, and there was no need to be rushing to work today. So, he lounged there for a moment, relishing in the remaining moments that he wouldn’t need to face his parents and their questions as to his past location. Soon enough, though, he shakily stood up from bed, leaving the sheets tangled and unkempt.

Aleks lazily threw on a creased shirt from his closet and a pair of chestnut-coloured slacks, the latest in the Fall range, and after a second of debate, he put the tie back and left the shirt and suspenders as they were.

He glared at his reflection in the mirror, taking in his reflection. His hair was messy and dishevelled, but at least it wasn’t caked in blood – he had the half the mind to dunk his head under the sink upon arriving home. The wound was healing, and now it was no more than a shallow scab on the side of his head, but it still made his temple ache.

He emerged from his room hurriedly, possibly hoping to avoid his parents, but he could hear them in the kitchen, most likely enjoying breakfast. His heart faltered slightly. He had come home far too late for them to even be aware he was in the house, and yet here they were, enjoying breakfast without a care for where their son was. Sometimes he wondered if they forgot he existed.

Nonetheless, he entered the kitchen slowly, focusing on the tiled floor pointedly until he heard his mother gasp exaggeratedly and rush over to where Aleks was standing at the kitchen counter, tiredly watching the housemaid scoop oatmeal into a bowl for him. His mother clutched his face and, in her cooing voice she had used ever since Aleks had been born, began speaking excitedly.

“Oh, my котенок, are you alright? We were worried sick,” She began, pressing a kiss to his forehead as Aleks gravely shovelled oatmeal into his mouth. He winced when her fingers accidentally skimmed over his head wound, and when she caught sight of it she cried out loud dramatically, her touch faltering. “What happened?” She asked rapidly, waving a hand at his father, who slowly walked over after sighing and dropping his newspaper on the table beside his morning coffee.

“Nothing, mother. I, uh, fell,” He said simply, the oatmeal suddenly tasting bland and sticky in his mouth, and he felt sick to the stomach. “I’m fine. I got lost in the crowd last night and,” He trailed off, absent-mindedly mixing his oatmeal in the bowl, “had to take a bathysphere home,” He continued finally, shrugging away her swatting hands, suddenly feeling crowded under his father’s stern gaze and his mother’s fretful chattering.

He heard his father mumble something and his mother hurriedly reply, but he didn’t intake anything they were saying before he was leaving his bowl on the counter and thanking the housemaid before slipping out of the kitchen and collecting his coat from the hanger near the front door.

“I’m visiting Trevor,” he called out, but received no reply, his mother and father no doubt quarrelling among themselves. After a moment, he opened the heavy door and stepped outside into the cool morning air – all simulated of course, but still refreshing in contrast to the stuffiness of the apartment. He hurried on his way to the bathysphere station, slipping between crowds of people hurriedly, He was only interrupted a few steps away from the station when a police officer placed a gloved hand on his chest, stopping him in his tracks,

“Mr Marchant,” He started, and something inside Aleks wanted to correct the title as ‘sir’, but he only watched with bored eyes as the police officer continued. “Where are you off to in such a hurry on this fine Sunday morning?”

Aleks scoffed in his head. On the outside, he simply offered a polite smile.

“Visiting a friend, officer… Is there a crime against that?” He responded, crossing his arms over his chest and tapping his foot impatiently. 

“It depends. I have a couple o’ my friends claiming they saw you around Apollo Square last night,”

“I’ve never been there,” Aleks responded, cursing under his breath as he heard the distant noise of a bathysphere dispatching. Great. Now he’d have to wait five minutes for the next one. “Now, if you’d excuse me-“

“Just make sure you’re not getting involved in the sickness of Rapture, Mr Marchant. I’d hate to see potential waste away,” and then the officer twisted his face into a gross mockery of a smile, giving Aleks shudders.

He forced a smile back, although he was sure it came across as more of a grimace.

“Charming. Good morning,” He said shortly before he was sliding past the officer and joining the commute again. He was in the bathysphere station in a matter of seconds, after sliding across five dollars to the attendant and dropping himself down on the cushioned bench lining the bathysphere, keeping his head down to avoid further disturbance. Once the bathysphere was occupied by other commuters, a screaming child amongst the passengers (and _ow,_ his head), the bathysphere departed, first stopping at the Medical Pavilion, and then Neptune’s Bounty, before finally reaching Apollo Square.

He had no doubt that eyebrows were raised among other passengers as this well-dressed young man entered a district such as Apollo Square, and Aleks did grimace at the thought of his _reputation_ being ruined, but nonetheless, he took strides towards the opening door.

He hopped out of the bathysphere, quietly thanking the conductor before exiting the small station. He journeyed down the streets, noting the posters he and Nova had witnessed yesterday were still intact, albeit ripped and washed out, before reaching the warehouse he had been brought to though some guesswork of its whereabouts. Somewhat hesitantly, he pushed open the heavy wooden door and was almost surprised at the quietness that greeted him. Pushing the door open further and slipping in, he was greeted with the quaint blueish-greyish lighting of a near empty warehouse, nearly vacant of the tables, chairs, and people it had been so populated with the night prior.

A few tables remained, dotted around the room, but there was one large table near the centre of the room that was occupied by five people, all of which looked up when the door announced Aleks’ arrival. He hastily stepped inside, and the room was uncomfortably quiet before Nova, who was reclined in his seat at the head of the table, let out a laugh as he hoisted himself to his feet and crossed his arms.

“He returns,” He said to no one in particular, but waved a hand beckoning Aleks closer. As Aleks neared the table, he could hear Nova direct a “I told you so,” to Brett, who scoffed before turning his attention back to their apparent task. Which, upon further inspection, was a pile of blueprint-like documents, from maps to lists of weapons and names. Aleks tilted his head in an attempt to read the words typed on the parchment, but Nova slid in front of him, resting a protective hand on the table and blocking Alek’s gaze.  

“Here,” he said simply, and Aleks lowered his gaze to identify the object being held out to him. A simple pistol. He carefully took it, noting the weight and the red cloth wrapped around it, and clumsily held it in his hand, somewhat loosely. His unsureness must’ve been obvious, because Lindsey raised an eyebrow at him almost immediately.

“You’ve never held a gun,” She said, amused, already reaching for it.

“I can’t say I’ve, uh, ever had the occasion to,” he responded slowly, but allowed her to take the gun and wield it in front of her using her free hand to gesture to it, explaining the different functions. She even took the time to take the bullets out in order to demonstrate how to reload. When she handed it back to him, it felt lighter in his grip, and he held it with more purpose now. All the while, the rest of the group talked idly, but Aleks felt Nova’s eyes on him the entire time.

“Thank you,” He said finally, nodding at her before turning his attention back to Nova, who had his hand on his shoulder all of a sudden.

“We’re going to go over our plans for New Year’s Eve. We plan to riot at the Kashmir Restaurant during the masquerade,” He said in a straightforward manner, all whilst withdrawing his hand from Aleks’ shoulder and using his free hand to point at the documents.

Aleks nodded slowly, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. “I received an invitation for the masquerade. My mother insists I go every year,”

It was true. Aleks had been forced to go annually ever since they arrived in Rapture, and every time it was the dullest night of the year. Adults talked about business, scandals and deals whilst a young Aleks lingered by his mother’s side, watching her gossip over a sloshing glass of champagne.

He was preoccupied in the thought, not even noticing as the table seemed to falls silence, everyone exchanging a glance and slowly looking at him in stern wonder.

“You have an invitation?” Brett asked, face dead serious.

“Yes,” Aleks confirmed.

Another look was exchanged before Nova leant over the table to scrawl on one of the documents. They all watched him intently before he straightened up, reading over the new notes.

“Okay. So, here’s what could happen,” He began, pointing at Aleks. “He goes in and causes a distraction of sorts. Nothing major, of course – even just talking to… uh, whoever attends these shitty pity parties, I guess,” He smiled wide, shaking his head before shrugging it off. He turned his attention to Brett who now seemed to Aleks to be a sort of second-in-command. “We could send in Asher as a plus-one…?” He suggested.

Brett’s eyes flickered between Aleks and Asher, before he nodded affirmatively. “Could work,”

“Great,” Nova grinned again, scrawling down notes on the blueprint. Without even looking up, he began relaying the information again. “Okay, so, they go in at approximately 10PM, mingle and act natural, Asher lays down the explosives. At midnight, we storm the entrance, gain access, and hell breaks loose.”

Aleks was stunned.

There was silence around the table.

“Good. Meeting over. See you all tonight.” Nova finished and began rolling up the blueprints, smiling and nodding his goodbyes and the table’s occupants began to disperse outside. Aleks, however, stayed, and watched Nova carefully pack away the blueprints in a rusty safe in a deserted looking open office.

“Can I help you?” He asked, accent coming through and twanging in his syllables.

“Yes, actually,” Aleks responded, hands moving to rest inside his trouser pockets, one brushing against the pistol’s cold metal. “I never agreed to help you, you know,”

“You’re here now, aren’t you?”

“You never told me I’d be-“ Aleks stopped himself and dramatically lowered his voice. “I’d be helping you stage a coup,”

Nova stood then, glaring. He was taller than Aleks, not by much, but enough to gain some stance over him.

“What exactly did you expect?”

“Peacefulness,”

Nova scoffed, echoing the word.

“What?” Aleks asked in confrontation, folding his arms protectively.

“Was anything ever achieved through peacefulness?” and, before Aleks could respond, “Look, you don’t have to stick around,”

“God, you’re insufferable,”

“I’m touched,”

“You’re such a… such a…” Aleks moved his hands in frustration, until he was stopped by Nova grabbing his left wrist.

“Such a parasite?” Nova finished, scowling.

“Yeah. Such a parasite,”

Nova let go of his wrist.

“I’m going home,” Aleks said after a moment, and turned to leave. He made it so, so close to the door before he heard rushed footsteps behind him and Nova’s hand on his upper arm.

“Wait,” Nova started. “You may be a brat, but…”

Aleks paused, rolling his eyes.

“We need you.”

Aleks turned slowly, feeling at the gun in his pocket and, Jesus, he could shoot him right now and just run home, back to his satin pillow and loving parents, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked Nova right in the eye, far too close for comfort, counted to ten in his head and then exhaled through his nose.

“Fine,” He said shortly.

“Fine. I’ll see you tonight,”

“What’s tonight?” Aleks echoed.

At eleven that night, the warehouse was ignited with the same sight of golden light, booming music, and tables and chairs scattered around the room. He recognised the same partygoers from the previous night, and he slunk through masses of people draped in red to find the table, only recognisable by Jakob’s tall stature being visible over the crowd. Aleks sunk into the same seat as before, greeting everyone with a nod.

And again, a beer was passed to him, and he smiled anxiously and mumbled his thanks as he carefully sipped it, watching the band begin playing something slow, and melancholic. People swayed together, united by ribbons of red and sparkles in their eyes, drinks in their hands and each other in their arms. He supposed there was something poetic about it all.

The soft notes of a violin strung out into the air, managing to challenge the rising volume of chatter amongst party goers. The peaceful music died out as soon as it had started. Aleks barely registered Nova springing from his chair and making his ways through crowds that practically cleared for him to climb up onto a table in a more centralised part of the room, no doubt knocking a few beers over in the process, and holding his own beer up in a mockery of a toast.

The room suddenly fell silent, people, including Aleks, twisted around in their chairs to watch the spectacle.

Nova cleared his throat.

“Here’s to hoping that this fucking riot goes through. Here’s to hoping we aren’t dead in twenty days. Here’s to…” He trailed off, and Aleks swore he looked straight at him. Nova cleared his throat, stomped one foot on the table, grinned and raised his voice. “Here’s to happiness, freedom, life and love!” He exclaimed, and people in the room immediately responded with cheers and clinks of glasses, and the music started up again, this time an upbeat, fast tune, obviously familiar judging by the cheers that accompanied it.

Immediately, people took to the floor to dance again, and Aleks watched with unconcealed amusement as Jakob forced Asher out of his seat. He was too busy being amused by Asher’s deadpan look as he was dragged away that he startled when Nova tugged him out of his seat by his arm and he was on his feet before he could register what was happening.

“Come on!” he exclaimed, tugging Aleks towards the sea of dancers.

“What? No, I can’t, I, uh,” Aleks fumbled for words, grasping at Nova’s shirt to keep him from forcing him any further. “I don’t know this song,” He nodded towards the dancers and Nova followed his gaze, a bright smile on his face that made something swell in Aleks’ chest. The statement wasn’t a lie, either. The rapid twirling and close proximity of the dancers was something foreign to Aleks, and he felt nervousness just watching them.

“Yeah, obviously. I’m pretty sure you only know the words to ‘Rise, Rapture, Rise’,” The other responded simply, and before Aleks could defend himself, he was being dragged into the sea of dancers.

He was lost for a moment – the blurs of colours and shapes surrounded him in a rapid movement and he felt himself swaying, the very sight of his surroundings dizzying. He spotted Jakob leading Asher in dance, and Aleks heard himself laughing in surprise at Asher’s wide grin, even as they yelled at each other and stepped on each other’s toes.

He squeezed his eyes shut until he felt a steady hand on his waist, and he opened his eyes to see Nova in front of him suddenly, eyes sparkling and beaming despite the heavy confrontation only a few hours prior.

“I, uh, took ballet and tap until I was sixteen. I don’t think I’m really prepared for this,” Aleks blurted out mainly to distract himself from counting each of Nova’s eyelashes and laughed nervously, but nonetheless, he placed his hand gently on the others shoulder and allowed Nova to join their free hands.

“Ballet?” Nova asked incredulously, but before Aleks could reply, he was being tugged in closer to him so that they were chest-to-chest. “You’re fucking ridiculous,”

“Hey, fuck you, not all of us were-“

“Here we go!” Nova responded in one quick breath, before Aleks was being tugged into the loop of dancers, feet barely managing to keep him from falling before he got the hang of the rapid footwork – kind of. He tripped a few times, all of which resulted in Nova quickly catching him and them laughing over it for a few seconds before they had to join the crowd again.

Aleks saw the blur of colour again, but this time it wasn’t nauseating – it was exhilarating. He felt the breath lunged from his chest and the smile on his face making his jaw ache, but he couldn’t bring himself to care – because all that mattered now was this moment.

He stumbled once again, but was caught immediately and was back on his feet in seconds, matching the pace in confident but ungraceful steps. They circled the space with ease over and over again, joyous even as the music made their ears ring and as they were playfully made fun of for their apparent dance inexperience.

He was twirled repetitively, and nearly bumped into a few other dancers, who laughed and patted him on the back, dismissing his apologies. As the music ended, he was twirled for a final time and everyone in the room seemed to collectively catch their breath in the brief break between songs. Aleks remained clutching onto Nova’s shoulders, laughing so hard he couldn’t catch his breath. He distantly heard one of the musicians count the next song down before Nova was yelling over the chatter and beginning drumbeat of the next song, letting go of Aleks’ waist and hand and taking a few steps back.

“Your hands are sweaty!” Aleks joked, followed by Nova’s ferocious laughter.

“Tap, pretty boy!” Nova exclaimed, his tone overly mocking and in some stupid voice, but Aleks laughed and rapidly pushed his knee up to his chest in order to fold up the end of his trousers on both legs. He watched Nova with a fierce grin on his face but friendly competition in his eyes. As soon as he understood the tempo of the song playing, he realised the space that had been formed around him, Nova watching from the outskirts of the surrounding partygoers watching him, smiling and cheering him on. He was too giddy to care.

Immediately, he began tapping his left foot repetitively on the ground, not loud enough to resonate around the room, but still an effective start as he began to move his right foot in near-enough perfect rhythm. There was no noise from his shoes, but he found himself moving faster and faster, arms beginning to rise as he pushed his feet to move swiftly, feet scraping and slamming against the floor in rapid succession. One of the musicians had the courtesy to count him out, and then there was silence, the only noise apart from gentle chatter in the far distance being the precise and quick tapping of shoes. Aleks twirled, once, and then the music was blaring again.

It was over quicker than he could count, and then he was stationary, the music over and his feet aching. The other dancers cheered and clapped, laughing and filling the space again, something Aleks was thankful for. Nova clapped slowly, grinning genuinely and laughing breathlessly.

“That was,” he laughed again, “somethin’, I guess,”

It was a blur after that. Aleks chugged his beer, danced until his muscles protested, and then he was being walked home by Nova, who stopped shortly before the entrance to the bathysphere station. It was dead quiet, and they stood there for a second, a flushed Aleks swaying slightly on his heels, before he burst out laughing suddenly.

“What’s so funny?” Nova asked, although he was beginning to chuckle just seeing Aleks so amused about nothing, at least to him.

“Your name,” Aleks started, moving one hand to rest on his shoulder. “What is it?”

There was a heavy silence, before Nova shook his head, still smiling. His hand moved to gently rest at the back of Aleks’ face and he had something wistful in his eyes, before he gave him a playful shove. Aleks stumbled back farther than intended, but was caught by Nova with a grin.

“Another time.” He said simply, ushering Aleks through the doors. “Maybe you can tell me yours too,”

“Maybe,” Aleks responded, and then he was being helped into an empty bathysphere by a disgruntled operator, who took his five dollars with an eye roll. He sat in that bathysphere quietly, turning over the red bandana in his hand somewhat thoughtfully, smiling softly, eyes drooping. He was horribly, terribly, dreadfully, utterly in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowzah getting kinda cheesy but thats how it be sometimes


	5. i've got your memories

He arrives early the next morning, after speaking to Joe briefly over the phone (which mainly comprised of Joe expressing his concerns and Aleks humming along tiredly) and wishing his mother well, who tuts when he slips out of the door.

He walks this time, neglecting taking the bathysphere at the sight of the bright red sign plastered on the door stating that all bathyspheres would be slower than usual due to safety risks. He read the sign with furrowed brows. That had never happened before. But, nonetheless, he went on his way, walking through the tunnels intertwining the city and staring with childlike wonder out of the windows, marvelling as a whale swum overhead. The city seemed so much more exquisite now.

Lindsey welcomed him first because she happened to be the only one at the table, calmly cleaning a gun with a dainty handkerchief. She wore a heavy jacket, too big for her and tattered with age over a plain blue blouse and black skirt, and watching Aleks with a steady gaze. There was a smudge of grease on her cheek.

“They’re on a supply run,” She answered to a question Aleks didn’t ask, focusing on her task. “We’re short on weaponry for the Kashmir riot, and they’re out at Smuggler’s Hideout. That’s where the guns come in from Topside,”

He had heard of Smuggler’s Hideout once or twice in passing, from listening into his father’s office at a younger age, hearing rushed and aggravated telephone calls and promises never kept. As far as he knew, it’s where criminals gathered and acquired illegal arms. Criminals like the group he had so foolishly joined.

“When will they be back?” Aleks inquired, taking a seat at the table and drumming his fingers on the tabletop. He had left his pistol at home, sandwiched underneath his mattress, away from the prying eyes of anyone respectable.

Lindsey stopped cleaning her gun and raised her hand to squint at the watch adorning her risk – a man’s one, judging from the thick brown leather of the band.

“They left about three hours ago, so any moment now,” She lowered her hand and set her pistol on the table. “You and Nova still playing the name game?” Lindsey smirked, obviously teasing him, but Aleks only shrugged, resting his chin in his palm.

“He seems, uh, stubborn about that alias of his,” Aleks remarked, wincing as the first waves of a headache trembled through his skull.

“You would be too if you were as wanted as he is,” she responded simply, and, as if to prove her point, she slid across a sheet of paper, the words ‘wanted’ typed in large lettering at the top of the page, followed by what looked like an ID photo of Nova. He was laughing, looking off to the left. Aleks stared at the photo for longer than probably necessary, and it somehow occurred to him that he was associating with criminals. He danced with a criminal – a man who had killed. The thought made his blood run cold, so he quickly turned over the paper and slid it back to Lindsey. She caught it with one hand, her free hand turning the gun over and inspecting it.

“Lindsey, will I, uh, be wanted?”

She looked sympathetic for a moment, pausing and placing the gun on the table where it landed with a metallic clatter.

“Soon, yes,” she started, obviously catching how Aleks’ gaze faltered. “If you’re really worried, we have a few remedies. Some of the others have taken to dying their hair, wearing makeup and the like, others saved up and paid a visit to Steinman,”

Aleks shuddered at the name. He recalled being a gullible sixteen year old, being prodded by Steinman’s assistants who noted his imperfections, all in some morbid attempt to convince him to change his appearance for the papers of Rapture.

“”I think I’d be more partial to something less major than Steinman,” He responded, and then Lindsey was rummaging around the storage compartment in the warehouse, shaking a suspicious looking bottle and applying it to Aleks’ hair in a matter of minutes. She carefully avoided his head injury, but applied it quickly, the chemical smell making both of them cough.

Whilst they were waiting for the (presumably) bleach to settle in, the others returned, carrying briefcases that were no doubt filled with weaponry. Brett sniffed the air and coughed, shaking his head as to rid himself of the smell.

“Taking some precautions here, huh?” Jakob asked, taking a seat and putting his feet up on the table, grinning at Aleks. He looked relatively unscathed, aside from the barely noticeable gash on his jawline. “I would do the same, but I’m not sure I’d suit the bleach look,” He offered Aleks a smile, before setting his head back and closing his eyes, no doubt exhausted from the combination of the early hour and the events of the night prior.

Speaking of which, Aleks turned his head to watch Nova, who was in the process of bickering with Asher over the guns they had acquired, but he eventually laughed and turned around, swatting at Asher with his hand. He met Aleks’ eyes, and Aleks offered him a careful smile. The events of last night were foggy in his mind, but he remembered laughing breathlessly, remembered Nova’s hand on his waist, remembered the feeling of being spun around without regard for anyone else in the room.

Nova smiled back, but turned away to respond to whatever Brett was saying to him in a defensive tone.

So, Lindsey helped Aleks wash the bleach out and an hour later, they were at the table, peering at blueprints closely. Nova was pointing enthusiastically at the new plans, explaining them in full detail. Aleks watched him carefully, noted the tiredness to his eyes and the blood still splattered on his temple. He didn’t mention it.

“Hey. Are you still fine to go in with Asher?” Nova inquired in a rush of words, tone sharp. Aleks supposed he may’ve asked before, only answered by Aleks’ blank eyes.

“What? Yes,” He replied, eyebrows furrowed, unsure of the need for such clarification. He’d be fine, surely.

“Good,” he said shortly, and that was that.

Except it wasn’t.

They were another thirty minutes into the meeting before the heavy tones of an alarm blared in Aleks’ ears. He winced at the volume, frowning and looking to the others, who were standing up in a rush, packing blueprints into plain satchels and briefcases.

“What’s happening?” Aleks yelled over the noise, shrugging on his jacket as they began heading towards the door.

“Police!” was all Asher said before turning towards the door and pulling it open to reveal people already rushing down the street, and Aleks only had a moment to process it all before he was being handed a briefcase and was following the others down the suddenly busy path towards the bathysphere station he and Nova had been at only a few hours prior.

“What’s happening?” Aleks yelled again, voice barely resonating over the crowd, but Nova turned his head as they ran towards the exit.

“Police raids. They, uh, search every house they can. It ends badly for most,” He responded, Aleks struggling to hear most of it. The group merged into the crowd almost effortlessly, nearly betrayed by the red bandana peeking out of Aleks’ coat pocket, corrected by Nova hastily.

They managed to force themselves into the next bathysphere, but Aleks nearly protested when he caught sight of the police officer who had so rudely interrupted his journey the morning before operating the bathysphere and maintaining order among the chaos of people demanding to be placed in a bathysphere.

Instead he ducked his head and stepped inside, hoping his newly coloured hair would conceal his identity, but to no avail. The officer caught his eye immediately and although he didn’t say anything, Aleks knew he was as good as dead. His parents would know, and then everyone would know. He would rot in prison for the rest of his life.

He stayed silent, however, tucked into Nova’s side and avoiding eye contact even as the officer stared him down.

“We’re getting out at Fort Frolic, there’s a secondary base there, ” Nova whispered, and Aleks nodded, but as the bathysphere docked at Olympus Heights, he felt the stare of the officer and as the man cleared his throat, clearly trying to push Aleks out.

That wouldn’t happen.

But, soon enough, panic set in and Aleks spared one last look at the officer, who was still glaring at him with enough in his eyes to tell him to leave immediately. Nova shifted to stand between him and the officer purposely, but after a moment of resistance, Aleks shuffled past the others and exhaled shakily before stepping out of the bathysphere, feet landing on hard tile. He twisted around as the bathysphere’s door swung closed and caught sight of the reactions to his sudden departure. He wished he hadn’t.

Some, like Lindsey and Asher, had a look of utter bewilderment on their faces. Brett looked stern and refused to make eye contact.

Nova looked furious.

Aleks turned away immediately, listening to the noise of water swirling as the bathysphere sunk and set off on its next destination. He stood there for a moment, staring at the puddles of water on the floor as his eyes began to sting. In an attempt to distract himself, he supposed, he began marching towards the exit, keeping his eyes downcast. His pace increased until he was running home and unlocking his door shakily, slamming the door behind him and throwing the briefcase into the corner of the room, watching as it fell to the carpet with a _thud_. His father was at work and his mother was most likely out for lunch, so Aleks had no qualms about sinking to the floor and sobbing, shoulders shaking with the force of it all.

He had fucked it all up, and that’s what spurred the tears of anger from his eyes.

He had fucked up the one opportunity to make a difference for once all because of some police officer. Nova would never speak to him again, he knew that much. God, he was a failure.

He sat there for a good thirty minutes, wallowing in his own tears, before he finally rubbed away the tears with the heel of his hand and picked himself up from the floor. He wandered into the kitchen, nodding at the housemaid in greeting. She pretended she didn’t hear him crying, and he was thankful for that, more thankful than she could imagine.

He eventually departed into his bedroom and fell onto his bed in the clothes he had been wearing that morning, crawling under the covers and pressing his face into a cold pillow, eyes still stinging. He fell asleep there, suspenders hanging from his trousers and watch ticking obnoxiously close to his ear.

He awoke sometime around midnight for a reason he couldn’t quite place. Blinking a few times to clear the sleep from his eyes, he sat up slowly, back propped up against the headboard. He gazed out of the window, the deep blue of the ocean casting a reflection on every surface in the room. And  - apparently – the man sat in the far corner of his room.

“What the fuck?” Aleks shot out in one breath, backing away against the headboard. He squinted in the dark to make out the intruder’s face but it was to no avail. The room was silent for a moment, uncomfortably so. “Who – what are you doing in my room?” He managed, remembering the placement of the pistol beneath his mattress. His hand shifted across the sheets and he tried to move his hand down the side of the mattress as inconspicuously as possible, but the gun was too far.

“I wouldn’t do that,” said the stranger, and Aleks knew he visibly relaxed. It was Nova. He was safe. Nova’s silhouette neared him slowly, taking tactile step around the bed until he was standing beside him, and now Aleks could really see his face in the blue light, eyebrows furrowed and cheekbone bruised. The light shone off of the shotgun sitting tightly in his hands, pointing directly at Aleks’ head.

Aleks felt fear jump in his chest and his mouth suddenly went dry, speechless. His hands grasped at the sheets underneath him, and every muscle in his body was urging him to flee. Instead, he stood his ground, avoiding staring down the barrel of the gun and instead watching Nova carefully. He scrambled for words, but eventually allowed his shoulders to slump, speaking in what he intended to be a nonchalant voice, but his words trembled and his voice broke.

“You won’t shoot me,” He stated, although he was becoming less sure by the second.

“Oh? What makes you so sure?” Nova responded, reloading the gun easily, eyes never leaving Aleks.

“You need me,” Aleks responded after a moment. “I have the invitation, I have the status, I have the plans. I’m your statement,”

“That’s cute. But I think you being found dead in your own home is a statement in itself, wouldn’t you agree, котенок?” He said, the last word so sickly sweet it churned Aleks’ stomach.

“How did you-“ He began, but was cut off when Nova pressed the gun to his forehead.

“Russian, huh? Just like Ryan,” He hissed, accompanying the last three words with nudges of the gun against his head. “You betrayed us. You betrayed me. We could’ve been caught by that officer. What the fuck were you thinking?” He raised his voice now, and then the room was suddenly submerged in darkness as an impossibly large whale lazily drifted past the window, blocking out every ounce of light.

They sat in the darkness, Aleks praying under his breath hurriedly. He was never a religious man, but the situation was enough to make him pray in Russian, like he had done when he was a young child. He only responded when Nova nudged his head with the gun again, and only then did he look up.

“I don’t know, I-“ He stopped. “I really want to help the cause. I do. I’m sorry,” Then, he pressed his forehead closer to the gun, fear suddenly replaced with numbness and hands clasped together.

“You better fuckin’ be,” Nova mumbled, and then the cold metal of the gun was gone, safety clicked on and discarded on his bedside table. Nova sat on the end of his bed quietly, face turned towards the window. After seconds of silence, Nova threw out his hand towards Aleks hurriedly.

“Wha-?” Aleks began to ask, but Nova simply turned towards him and cocked his head, like a confused dog.

“Introductions. I think it’s about time,” He said, and it wasn’t a question.

“Oh,” Aleks managed, and gently shook his hand, grip looser than Nova’s. Never have the strongest handshake in the room, he recalled his mother telling him. He supposed it applied here.

“James Wilson,” Nova said, nodding with a serious face.

James. It suited him, he supposed, but it also didn’t. An ordinary name for an extraordinary man.

“ _Aleksandr_ Vitalyevich Tchernev- _Marchant_ ,” Aleks introduced himself in one breath, releasing his hand and watching as James flopped down onto his bed, laying on his back and staring at the decorated ceiling. “Aleks to my friends,”

“Well, _Aleks_ , you think you could write that one down for me?” James asked, and Aleks huffed a laugh, and it was almost as if he hadn’t been threatened with death only a minute prior.

They sat in comfortable silence for a few minute, both gazing out of the window at the city lights, still illuminated at the late hour. Aleks had a million questions on his mind, but he asked the first one that occurred to him.

“Who were you?” He began, and when James raised an eyebrow at him, hurriedly clarified. “Before Rapture, I mean. When did you get here?”

“Must’ve been ’51. January, I think. Me and my mom, we travelled from Philadelphia,” He looked away then, swallowing. “When did you get here?”

“’47. I was twelve or thirteen. We came from Russia under invite from Ryan. My father knew him from his childhood or something.”

 “Russian, yeah. You’ve lost your accent.” He commented flatly.

“No, I just learnt to conceal it.” He corrected, sitting back against his headboard.

They were quiet again.

“Why do you work in government?” James inquired, picking at the redness on his knuckles.

“What?”

“Well, look at you. You’re in magazines and, uh, attending those fashion galas and masquerades. You even collaborated with Cohen. Why work at all?”

“My father makes me. Says it builds character,” he replied absently. “I don’t like talking about the whole fashion thing. My mother forced me into it. I regret every moment.”

“I think that’s why I didn’t shoot you. Wouldn’t want to ruin such a pretty face,” he smiled at Aleks, laughing somewhat nervously, and Aleks didn’t realise he was edging closer until he was kneeling by James’ side, head tilted to stare at him in the limited sapphire light. His legs were tangled in the sheets but he slowly placed a hand on the other side of James’ body and pushed himself to hover over him, eyes carefully flicking around like he was dealing with a wild animal.

James pushed his upper body up by leaning on his elbows and watched Aleks with an amused smile, one eyebrow quirked. They sat there a moment, eyes locked and laughs stifled poorly. Eventually, James was the one to lean closer, and they kissed.

It was a pathetic little kiss really, more of a brief brush of their lips, nothing unlike the juvenile kisses seen on school playgrounds, but it brought a flush to Aleks and enough encouragement for him to practically lunge forwards, and their teeth knocked together messily but Aleks clutched onto James’ shoulders and he felt rushed hands grip his waist and they were dancing again, the rushed colours behind Aleks’ eyelids dizzying but intoxicating.

James leant back after a moment, face just as flushed as Aleks’.

“What’s wrong?” Aleks asked breathlessly, hands fluttering over the folds of James’ shirt.

“I need to go,” He said quietly in response, gently ushering Aleks off of him. Aleks sat back on his knees with slight hurt building in the pit of his stomach, and it must’ve shown, because James picked up his shotgun and leant in to kiss Aleks as a departure, he supposed, his free hand trailing across his shoulder blades.

“See you tomorrow, James,” Aleks whispered in the darkness of his room, eyes suddenly feeling heavy.

“Goodnight, Aleksandr,” James whispered back, and Aleks laughed lightly, the noise barely resonating around the room.

And then James was slipping out of the door, and he was gone, like a ghost

Aleks leant back, head sinking into the soft pillow as he stared at the ceiling with a grin, eyes watering for a reason he couldn’t place. He turned onto his side and watched Rapture through his window as if in a trance, exhaling shakily when a group of violet jellyfish drifted past the glass, nearly translucent.

His heart ached and heaved like an anchor, sinking to the bottom of the deep blue sea to nestle in the sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes haha


	6. if i didn't care

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhhh warning for mentions of past abuse

Aleks returned the next morning, because of course he did.

On the journey there, he did have a moment of contemplation as to whether he had been dreaming or not. It sure felt like a dream. Nonetheless, he left the bathysphere with an excited spring in his step, brown pea coat wrapped tight around him as he made his way towards the warehouse.

He shoved the door open and expected to be greeted with the usual sight of the five leaders, hunched over a table. Instead, he shoved open the door and was plunged into a crowd of people, at least three hundred. Tables and chairs were scattered around the room, and people sat there, conversing quietly, cleaning their weapons, or sorting papers. Aleks weaved through the crowd until he found Jakob, who was scrubbing at an old rifle with unseen determination. He frowned when he saw Aleks, though.

“Aleks,” He greeted, face void of any expression. Something inside Aleks flared up in alarm.

“Look, Jakob, I’m sorry,”

“Don’t be. Nova explained,” Jakob responded, a smile finally breaking his features.

“Still. It wasn’t, uh, great,”

“No.”

Aleks sat slowly, watching Jakob scrub away at the rifle as flakes of rust dispersed onto the wooden tabletop.

“So… why are there so many people today?” Aleks asked slowly, leaning against the table. He had brought his pistol this time, and it was buried in the pocket of the coat, a heavy but familiar presence by his hip.

“We need to go over the plan with everyone. It’s a lot, I know,” Jakob looked out into the crowd of people, before adjusting his glasses and setting the gun down on the table. “We should be starting any second now.”

It seemed Jakob had perfect timing, because Aleks caught sight of James climbing onto one of the tables in the middle of the room, and the room quickly fell silent.

“Okay, so, uh, listen up, because this is only going to be said once,” He began, and then the meeting was in full swing. James spoke clearly and laid out the plan just as discussed, taking no less than an hour to go over everything, and by the end of the meeting, there was a buzzing confidence in the room of shared passion and, Aleks guessed, anger.

When he had finished speaking, the room quickly filtered out, people removing their red cloths from their arms and shoving them into their pockets quickly before they entered the streets of Apollo Square. Most rushed towards the bathysphere stations, most likely in order to get to their respective jobs.

James approached Jakob and Aleks, closely followed by Brett, who looked as disinterested as always, but had a contempt glean in his eyes.

Aleks stood, mumbling a compliment regarding James’ speech, something mundane and dull but at least it was something. Asher and Lindsey soon joined the group, apologising for their lateness and blaming it on some hold-up in the bathyspheres; Aleks wasn’t particularly listening, too busy trying to meet James’ eye and to stay awake, eyes drooping in exhaustion. They conversed for a few minutes, Aleks paying little to no attention as he fiddled with his coat buttons, hardly  noticing when Brett waved a hand at him to follow him, only brought to his attention with Jakob lightly pushed him forward by his shoulder.

Aleks shuffled after Brett, hands falling into his pockets. His hand brushed against his pistol and he flinched slightly, the cold metal a shock. Brett led him into a small office-like room tucked into the corner of the warehouse that Aleks had somehow never noticed. The doors had always been closed, and presumably locked. Brett, however, pushed open the door with no struggle and Aleks stepped in, eyes flicking around the place.

It was small, and looked used. A table was covered in documents and an old typewriter was facing a plain chair, a piece of paper half hanging out of the clamps, words smudged on the paper.

Brett closed the door with a quiet click and immediately turned towards his desk, shuffling through papers as if looking for something. He didn’t say anything at first, so Aleks shifted his eyes away, hands moving behind his back, waiting for inevitable conversation.

Eventually, Brett turned towards him, clasping his hands together.

“Aleks,” he started. “I want to be frank; I don’t trust you,”

“…The feelings mutual,” Aleks said, eyebrows furrowed, trying to decipher exactly what Brett was trying to tell him.

Brett put the papers back down, now stacked in a neat pile. He stood against the wall, spine straight and arms crossed over the plan waistcoat he was wearing. Aleks would maybe think him to be a rich man, if he didn’t know him.

“James… can’t be distracted from the cause. He’s got bright ideas, and I’ll be damned if you ruin this for us. I don’t trust you, Aleks,” He clapped his hands together, but seemed to drop the tone. “But you make James happy, and that’s just swell,” His voice seemed sarcastic, but Aleks wasn’t convinced that was intentional.

There was quiet again, and Aleks refused to make eye contact, gaze cast to the desk to the right of Brett. When it was clear Brett had no more to say, Aleks shifted his eyes up.

“Is this like an interrogation?” Aleks asked unsurely. “Because, honestly, I’m not trying to ruin this uprising, or anything, I promise,”

To his surprise, Brett began laughing.

Giggling was a better description of the noises Brett made as he covered his face with one hand, shoulders shaking.

“Good talk, Aleks,” He said between laughs, and soon enough Aleks was laughing too, out of combined relief and in response to Brett’s ridiculous laugh.

The door clicked open and they both turned to the door to see Asher standing there with an amused smile, eyebrows raised expectantly.

“You two done?” he asked, and Brett nodded, breathy laughs still leaving him.

“Yeah, yeah. Aleks, have fun, okay?” and then he was slipping past Asher, who nodded as he passed.

“Hey, Aleks, James wants to see you. Thinkin’ he might pop the question.” He said, voice still in a monotone. Aleks huffed out a laugh and walked out after Asher, closing the door behind him. At least he was on semi-good terms with Brett. Maybe.

They neared the table again, where Lindsey was cleaning her gun again, laughing at Jakob as he spoke expressively. James piped in, voice faking aggressiveness. Aleks neared the table and somehow felt like he was intruding, but smiled nonetheless at James when he caught sight of him.

“Aleksandr!” James practically barked when Aleks emerged from the room, just in time to catch Brett disappearing to the back of the warehouse, boots hitting the floor loudly. “I’m going to go check out a dealer in Fort Frolic,”

When Aleks only nodded with vague interest, he raised an eyebrow expectantly.

“What? You want me to… join you?” Aleks enquired, mouth quirking upwards.

“I was hoping so, yeah,” James said, a defensive tone to his voice despite his amused smile.

“I suppose I could,”

And that’s how Aleks found himself stepping off the bathysphere in Fort Frolic’s station and rolling his eyes at the instant orchestral music that blasted through the room at their arrival – a custom for every bathysphere arrival.  He turned to glower at the stupid rabbit mask that hung over the pool of water the bathyspheres arrived through, if only for his own resent towards Cohen, the overseer of Rapture’s entertainment sector. They quickly walked through the station, and pushed through the entry doors.

Fort Frolic was, for lack of better word, aristocratic. The high ceilings, fine paintings and stone pillars in the lobby alone a clear indicator of that. Straight ahead, Aleks could see the neon sign advertising the entrance to Neptune’s Bounty, but James instead turned left, leading Aleks through the doors with the glowing sign of ‘WELCOME TO FORT FROLIC’ above it.

Fort Frolic looked the same. The bright lights still managed to make him wince despite the number of times he had been forced to return, and the obnoxiously loud conversation mixed with the orchestra playing was near enough deafening. He followed James across the floor, eyes cast to the checkerboards tiles lining the floor in a conscious attempt as to not stare directly at the sickening neon of his surroundings.

James wove through the surprising amount of people visiting Fort Frolic, and Aleks found himself struggling to keep up, until James broke through the crowd by finding stairs leading to the Lower levels of Fort Frolic, stopping near the entrance of ‘The Seahorse’, a popular ‘Exotic Dancing Club’, as it was so delicately written on the sign. Aleks scowled at the place, before turning back to James, who was anxiously tapping his foot.

“You knew Cohen, right?” he asked, and the question was innocent enough, but it was enough to make Aleks tense and look up, trying to focus on the richly decorated ceiling.

“Uh, yeah. Through my father, of course, but I knew him,” He said thickly.

“You were in his shows,” James said, a cigarette in his mouth as he lit it, exhaling smoke into the air. “Is it true, what they say? That-“ James didn’t finish, because Aleks was crossing his arms over his chest and seemingly sinking into his coat, face twisted into a grimace.

“Yes. Yes, it’s true.” He paused, glowering at the floor. “He’s a sick fuck,”

He turned his gaze to James, who was silently smoking, eyes wandering over their surroundings.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve known,” He said quietly, and Aleks nodded.

That was all they said for a while, until James put out his cigarette on the wall he was leaning on and flicked it to the floor, pushing himself to stand.

“C’mon, it’s through here,” and then he was pushing through the front doors of The Seahorse, and Aleks had no choice but to follow him. It was near deserted, considering the lunchtime hour, but a few dancers half-heartedly moved to the music playing through the club, a fast-paced tune. The main customers consisted of drunks who definitely could not afford to be here, and a few businessmen who sourly sipped at their drinks whilst casting shifty looks towards Aleks and James.

James pushed through the back door that had a cursive ‘employees only’ written on it, and it led directly into a dressing room, mirrors on every wall and piles of clothes dotted around the space. A few dancers were sat at their mirrors, pressing powder onto their nose or fixing their hair, and Aleks kept his head down when he recognised at least two women from his fashion days. Now they were here. He turned his attention back to James when guilt shuddered through him, and he noted the man James was talking to. Tall and aged, with dark eyes and darker hair, a neat moustache lining his nose. He looked drunk, and he lazed on an armchair in the far corner of the room. James picked up one of the brown Gladstone bags at the floor of the chair and Aleks hurriedly took the other, mumbling his thanks to the man.

The bag was heavy, but not unbearably so, and Aleks had no doubt it was filled with guns or explosives. James pushed a stack of notes towards the man and without even waiting for a response, and, not waiting for Aleks either, he turned and pushed through the door. Aleks rushed after him as soon as he heard one of the girls start mumbling, and as soon as his name was uttered, he pushed through the door, hastening through the club and exiting through the front door, jumping in fright when James was directly outside the door, leaning against the wall to the left.

“Fuck!” He exclaimed, hands coming up to his chest. 

“Jumpy,” was all James said. “Want to go for a drink?”

Aleks squinted at James, giving him his best annoyed face before shrugging and adjusting his grip on the bag. “Uh, okay. What did you have in mind?”

 _This certainly wasn’t what he had in mind_ , Aleks thought as he squinted at the entrance to perhaps the most expensive bar in Fort Frolic. This was no place for them, but James waltzed in like he owned the place, and Aleks had no choice but to follow, and as soon as he pushed open the door, the sound of gentle piano, soft chatter, and the clinking of glasses took him back to nights spent by his mother’s side at fancy parties and overly polite dinner parties.

He was lost in thought until James was pressing a cold glass to his hand, and he peered into the glass at the golden liquid. Whiskey. He sipped it, face scrunching up at the taste but he was distracted by James’ tight grip on his elbow as he led them to a low table tucked into the corner, two burgundy armchairs opposite each other. James pulled out the armchair for him and Aleks let out a soft laugh at that, shaking his head as James sat down too, glass set on the table.

“What? I’m a gentleman,”

“You’re anything _but_ a gentleman,” Aleks retorted, but sipped his drink again and actually examined the place they were sitting in. It was draped in red curtains and fabric, gold chandeliers glittering above their heads. Cohen’s art was scattered around, and the wooden bar in the corner was surrounded by his sculptures, abstract pieces that Aleks had no interest in understanding. There were a few others in the bar, and nearest to them sat an old couple in extravagant clothing, who were talking quietly over glasses of wine. They were casting James and Aleks suspicious looks, so they were most likely best ignored.

They were comfortably quiet for a moment, and Aleks half-listened to Cohen’s voice over the music, exaggeratedly announcing his newest play. He stared hard into his whiskey, looking up to meet James’ eyes, who seemed to be staring right at him.

“Can I help you?” Aleks asked, grinning, but James simply shook his head with a tight smile.

“No, no. Sorry.” James finished his whiskey and set it on the table perhaps harder than necessary. “Just thinking,”

“What’re you thinking about?”

James paused, seeming to roll over the question in his mind. After a moment, he leant forward, gently taking Aleks’ left hand in his, elbow propped up on the table.

“It’s people like Cohen that are the reason Rapture needs to be taken control of,” he uttered, causing Aleks to lean in too. “It’s people like you  that need to be avenged,”

Aleks wasn’t sure what spurred him to do it, but he leant in closer and pressed a hesitant kiss to his lips, quick and conscious of their surroundings. James just grinned and shook his head, leaning back again.

Aleks softly hummed, finishing his own whiskey and resting his elbow on the armrest of his chair, chin in his palm.

“You’re so dramatic,” He mocked, spurring James to burst into a fit of laughter, which caused Aleks to laugh too, eyes crinkling as his shoulders shook.

“Hey,” James responded, still chuckling.

Eventually the evening crowd started to trickle in, and after whispers of Cohen visiting the bar began trickling around the place, they left as soon as possible, bags swinging by their sides as they walked towards the station. They decided to take the Atlantic Express back this time, and Aleks sat in his seat, hands resting on the chestnut table in front of him, bag beside him on the crimson seats. James sat opposite him.

The carriage was almost completely empty, aside from a lone woman a few tables away, and a group of businessmen arguing loudly at the front of the carriage.

James was the one to lean forward now, standing out of his seat to lean over the table and press his palm to the back of Aleks’ neck, gently kissing him. Aleks’ hands moved to grip the front of James’ shirt, and they kissed until the cheerful chime of a bell signalled the train stopping at a station, and then Aleks had to break away because he heard the familiar voice of-

“Aleks?” Anna asked, standing at their table, hands tightly gripping her purse, mouth parted in surprise.

Aleks smiled weakly and James slowly sat back down, looking between Aleks and Anna deliberately.

“Hello, Anna,” he said finally, barely having time to move his bag before Anna was sliding into the booth next to him, red dress clashing awfully against the seat.

“What happened to you?” She asked softly, and before he had time to answer, her voice became more frantic, gloved hands moving in quick motions. “You were kidnapped! You haven’t been in work for – what – a week? Trevor is worried sick because you haven’t been returning his calls,” She rushed out, only slowing down towards the end when she squinted at his shock-of-blonde hair. “What… happened to your hair?” Aleks didn’t have time to answer any of her questions before she was turning to James, holding out her hand for him to shake.

“I’m Anna.” He shook her hand, not responding with an introduction. “You look familiar…”

Shit.

Aleks quickly interjected, coughing obnoxiously loudly to attract her attention again.

“I’m sorry, Anna. I’ve been busy, but I’m fine,” he explained vaguely, eyes shifting to the left to avoid eye contact. “And the hair was a spontaneous decision, I suppose,”

She laughed shortly, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Aleks,”

The soft jingle of a bell and the cheerful announcer voice declaring ‘Olympus Heights!’ caused Aleks to stand, followed by James. Anna immediately shuffled out of the booth, giving Aleks a tight hug as he paused when passing by her.

“Merry Christmas, Aleks,” she said, before releasing him with a tight-lipped smile and sitting back down, shuffling next to the window.

He returned the sentiment before exiting the carriage, meeting James on the platform. He nodded at him and they walked together, out of the station, where Aleks became dimly aware that this wasn’t James’ stop. He voiced this as they passed by a small bistro on the corner, turning to walk towards the entrance to Athena’s Glory Apartments.

“I’m walking you home, like a gentleman,” he said, simply, snickering. Soon enough, they made it to the apartment entrance and Aleks was followed into the elevator by James, who pressed the floor’s button for him. As the elevator rose, Aleks felt James’ hand slowly nudge his, and soon enough they were intertwining fingers, still looking straight ahead, expressionless. Aleks broke first, tilting his head to raise an eyebrow at James and to smile, to which James made a face.

When they made it to his floor, Aleks fished his keys out of his pocket and, before unlocking the door, he kissed James gently, hands resting on his shoulders softly, and James’ hands came up to rest on his waist. They separated soon enough, and James breathlessly whispered-

“Merry Christmas, Aleks,”

“Merry Christmas, James,”

And then Aleks was unlocking his door, and with a quick smile, he was disappearing into the apartment, door shutting behind him, brown bag left on the floor of the elevator.

James beamed, and pressed the button for the ground floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a nightmare haha  
> dw this is actually going somewhere i promise


	7. intermission

Trevor had had a fucking nightmare for the past week.

It was safe to say that the offices were in chaos, from the carpeted floors littered with disordered documents to the resignation letters that seemed to be rolling in by the hour. Ever since that first break-in, security had been dialled up to one hundred, and Trevor couldn’t even get into the building without being interrogated by the same officer, every single day.

He would hold up a police sketch, messily drawn in ink, the same image Trevor had seen on posters scattered around Arcadia, and with a gruff voice inquired ‘have you seen this man?’. The man in question, with his loose, long hair ending around his shoulders and dark eyes was a stranger to Trevor, and he would say so, hands fiddling with his sleeve cuff.

And even when he was granted access into the building to begin his work day, it was still torture.

Anna would greet him first, every day.

She had taken a day off work after the break-in, but was called back the next day due to an overflow of people making enquiries regarding what-in-living-hell had happened. Her tired eyes and weak smile was enough to make unexplainable guilt built in Trevor’s chest, but he greeted her the same and took his sign-in card from her trembling hands. He supposed she did get better, though. Three days after the accident, she was talking again, but gave vague, unpersuasive details to the police, except to enquire as to Aleks’ whereabouts.

The police reassured them Aleks was fine. Trevor was not convinced.

He tried calling the household a number of times, but only the household’s maid would respond, gently reassuring Trevor that Aleks was home and safe, and before Trevor could demand to speak to him in an unsure voice, the line would go dead.

Joe was doing the same, but Aleks actually responded then. Trevor would tell anyone he didn’t feel jealousy, but he did. It was quickly replaced by reassurance, though, when Joe put the phone back on it’s cradle and told him that Aleks was doing fine. He supposed that was comfort enough.

Joe wasn’t doing too well, either. He was stressed, that was plain to see, and Trevor didn’t want to say anything, but he definitely suspected underlying trauma. After all, the break-in did affect their floor, and Trevor had a distinct memory of squatting beneath his table, hands over his head, the noise of screaming and yelling echoing around the room. He was one of the lucky ones. ‘Office C’ seemed to be of little interest to their attackers, who sent in three of their followers to patrol the room, occasionally shouting threats, whilst Rapture Warnings played amidst the alarm overhead.

He knew they were headed for Office B, and his heart hammered in his ears as he tried to focus on his breathing. His friends were in there.

He didn’t dare move until the attack was over, and then he was being hoisted out from under the table by a friendly police officer, who politely asked if there was anyone he could call. There wasn’t.

He instead found Joe, who was sitting in the lobby behind Anna’s desk, sipping a glass of water. She must’ve let him behind the desk. Anna herself was silent, and she let Trevor in too, only offering him a faltered smile.

They sat there for a while – Trevor couldn’t say for how long; it could’ve been minutes, but it could’ve been hours. Soon enough, though, Anna turned off the reading light by her desk and pushed her chair out, picking up her purse with a trembling hand. Trevor faintly heard Joe weakly suggest they go for dinner, and then Joe was gently holding his arm as they walked towards the nearest bistro, taking a seat in the corner. Joe, seemingly the most stable of both of them, ordered them waters, and Trevor heard his own voice excuse himself, and then he was out of the bistro.

He fished in his coat pocket as he neared the gap between buildings, and slid in, trusting the shadows to hide him from anyone passing by.

From his pocket, he withdrew a needle filled with deep red liquid, not much, but enough to clear the fog in his mind. He removed the small cap on the point of the needle and wasted no time in pressing it into his forearm and pushing down the trigger, trying not to wince when the liquid seeped into his bloodstream like syrup and caused his entire arm to flare up in heat, before settling again. He waited until there was no trace of ADAM left in the needle before discarding it on the floor, and covering his arm back up with his coat sleeve.

He hadn’t _meant_ to get addicted to ADAM – it was one time, and then it was two times, and then it was every other day, sometimes more. He felt guilty every time he took it, but it was impossible to stop now, and between the copious amount of ADAM in his bloodstream and the combined stress of everyday life, the days passed in a blur.

He found himself back at the table soon enough, feeling as if a veil had been lifted off his head.

And so this routine continued. Every day, they would finish work and walk to the same bistro, at the exact same table, ordering the exact same things. Trevor would take his ADAM exactly ten minutes into the meeting, and then they would part ways an hour later. It was their way of coping, he supposed.

And Aleks was still nowhere to  be found. Trevor felt what could only be called betrayal. Aleks had been _kidnapped_ , but he was apparently fine and yet hadn’t bothered to contact his friends at all? The thought angered him.

So, on Christmas Eve, when he saw Aleks through the glass window of some overpriced bar, he seriously considered going in to confront him, or to at least ask him _why_. But Aleks leant in to quickly kiss the figure opposite him, and Trevor squinted harder, only stopping when his ADAM-filled brain put together the pieces, and he found himself rushing to the nearest police station, practically slamming into the desk and rushing out-

“I want to report, uh, affiliation with terrorism…?” –

Because the man in question, with his loose, long hair ending around his shoulders and dark eyes was a stranger to Trevor, but was no stranger to Aleks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew this is super short but probably my last update for a while :/ im determined to finish this fic tho


	8. wonderful, wonderful

Aleks woke up on Christmas happier than he had been in months.

He sat up in bed and yawned once, before swinging his legs over the bed and grimacing at his reflection in the window opposite him. His tangled hair and rumpled shirt was an unruly sight, and he made a quick effort to cross his room and shove open his closet door, peering at the countless outfits inside. He hesitantly retrieved a plain shirt and slacks, and threw it on his bed before he embarked to his bathroom.

Upon emerging from his room, fully dressed and actually looking alive, he felt his cheery mood falter at the Christmas decorations embellishing the walls and ceiling. He carefully walked down the stairs, avoiding the step ladder precariously balanced on a step, tinsel half-put up and drooping from the ceiling. He reached the bottom of the stairs and turned into the kitchen, making an effort to avoid his mother’s eyes. His father was nowhere to be seen.

He glimpsed the beginning of a tray of cookies baking in the ovens, and carefully manoeuvred around a stack of late greeting cards on the floor.

“Good morning,” He greeted, a soft smile dancing on his face. It was difficult to be angry today.

“Happy Christmas, Aleks,” His mother responded, leafing through the newspaper on the kitchen counter, which Aleks hurriedly skimmed over her shoulder as he made his breakfast.

“Where’s…” He trailed off when he took a bite of an apple, free hand flailing in the air pointedly.

“Your father is at work. I didn’t want him to go, but he assures me he’ll be back for tonight’s festivities,” She offered him a small smile, but Aleks didn’t mistake the sadness in her eyes. It made his chest hurt. Instead, he tried to focus on her words.

“Festivities?” He enquired, mildly interested. She surely meant their dinner; that was the only festivity they celebrated on Christmas. It wasn’t for religious reasons, no, Christianity was banned in Rapture, although he suspected his mother and father must’ve held onto their traditional upbringing.

He hadn’t received presents since he turned eighteen, and his mother disregarded his father’s proposals of extravagant parties, claiming that Christmas was ‘for family’.

“The party,” She replied nonchalantly, turning the page.

Aleks laughed nervously, turning to meet her confused gaze.

“Party? What party?” He asked once she showed no sign of joking. “I thought… I thought we didn’t do parties,”

“We don’t. But your father has an important deal to make, so it was necessary to improve relations, you know? To charm,” She turned a page. “It will be a small affair, dear,”

“Oh,” Aleks managed, suddenly not all that hungry. He disembarked from the kitchen slowly, mumbling a goodbye to his mother as he reached for the telephone situated by the front door, only to realise with a start that he didn’t know James’ number. And he couldn’t go to Apollo Square - it would be too suspicious. It was just that suddenly he felt this awful feeling of solitude, of being trapped, like he was drowning. So he did the first thing he could think of, hand moving on its own.

“Hello?” came Trevor’s tired voice after three rings, and Aleks’ hand tightened around the phone without realising.

“Trevor, hi.” Aleks mumbled, guilt swelling inside. In some lazy effort to distract himself from his own selfishness, he leafed through the weighted phonebook sitting cosily on the side table.

There was a lengthy pause.

“Aleks, you were kidnapped and didn’t speak to me for _days,_ ” Trevor spoke back in a whine.

“I know-“

“I’m not really in the mood to talk,”

“Trevor, wait,” Aleks started, before he stopped. Hand pausing mid-turn of the telephone directory, the most peculiar sight lay there on the crisp white page. In red ink, a number had been circled hastily, the rouge smudged onto the page and obstructing the next number. Aleks scanned the number with narrowed eyes, trying to piece together his memory of it – it seemed familiar somehow, like he had seen in advertised. Beneath it was no name, no company, nothing. It was peculiar – his family hardly ever vandalised their phonebooks. Speaking of which-

Aleks turned the book to peer at its front.

Written in bold black letters was what could be expected – RAPTURE TELEPHONE DIRECTORY.

And beneath that, in small print – ISSUED TO RESIDENTS OF APOLLO SQUARE.

This was not their phonebook.

“Aleks?” Trevor’s voice rang through, and Aleks raised his gaze from the book as he startled.

“Uh, yeah. Look, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. I should’ve contacted you. I was just… I don’t know. Uh… my mother is insisting on a Christmas party. Come tonight, will you?” He asked lamely, opening the book again and tracing the red outline with his finger.

“Maybe,” Was Trevor’s hesitant reply, and then the line went dead.

Aleks held the phone to his ear for a moment, listening to the soft buzz of a dead line before settling it in its cradle with a heavy sigh. He then lingered, hand resting on the smooth ivory of the telephone before, in one swift motion, picking it up again and pressing it to his ear and hastily dialling the circled number before he could change his mind.

The line rung for a while, much longer than necessary, before a click sounded and a tired, muffled voice answered the call.

“Who is this?” The voice asked, and Aleks rolled his eyes, recognising the voice immediately. He turned, leaning against the table and scanning the hall in front of him, making note of the decorations pristinely hanging on the wall.

“You left me your telephone directory?” He asked instead of answering, nodding as his mother swept through the hall and up the stairs with a flourish, silk scarf loose around her neck. When she was out of sight, he continued, “You know, most just leave their number,”

“Do they now?” The voice responded, much less muffled now. “And what’s your source?”

“I’ll have you know many of my _lovers_ have left me numbers,” He mumbled back, voice rising in a mockery of an accent. The conversation seemed to flow so naturally, it was almost unsettling. He was so used to the same stiff template of statements and replies in a boxed-out structure that this casual stream of jokes and words were quite the occurrence.

“We’re lovers?” James replied with a amused noise, rustling sounding over the line.

Aleks sputtered for a moment, before settling on a nervous laugh.

“I would think so,” He weakly responded. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the lilac scarf trailing down the staircase. His mother watched him with narrowed eyes. Aleks pressed another hand to the telephone.

“I’m glad. Having a nice day?” James asked, and the noise of a gunshot was unmistakeable as it pierced through the innocent question.

Aleks startled.

“Was that a gunshot?” Aleks asked after a short while, shrinking under his mother’s sudden glare.

“Uh, yes. Listen, I’ll see you tonight, Aleks!” James yelled over what sounded like something being destroyed, and then he hung up. Aleks slowly placed the phone on its cradle again and turned the telephone directory to a more inconspicuous page before turning to see his mother, still standing at the foot of the stairs, eyes dark.

She was calmly fastening a broch onto the waistband of her emerald green skirt. Aleks grimly looked at the phone and then back to her.

“Who was that, then?” She asked softly.

“A friend. From work.” He responded, almost slurring in panic.

It was then that he crossed the short distance to the foot of the stairs and passed her haughtily, one hand sliding up the bannister. She suddenly reached out and grabbed his wrist, tight, with a steady hand. Aleks stopped immediately, turning his head to watch the hand on his wrist and raising his gaze to survey his mother’s expression.

They stood there for a long while, before Aleks tore his hand away. Some unspoken words had been exchanged, he supposed.

Finally, she mumbled something unintelligible in Russian, shook her head, and let him go.

He watched her as she exited the hall, slipping into the lounge. There was a soft murmur of conversation between her and the housemaid. Aleks stood there for a long while, listening to a conversation too quiet to understand, before continuing up the stairs with light steps. He stepped into his bedroom and let out a loud sigh, slumping against the closed door. He felt like he was suffocating.

It was minutes before he regained his composure and crossed the room to his closet and opened it again, withdrawing a fitted suit from the leftmost side of the closet. It was a simple jacket and slacks, grey, with a slightly lighter grey grid pattern etched on as a design. It was one of his favourites. The jacket was left on top of Aleks’ unmade bed, but the trousers went on. A black turtleneck followed, and so was his father’s watch, gifted to him years ago. He inspected himself in the mirror slowly, unimpressed. He looked fine, sure – dashing, even. But he felt wretched.

Nevertheless, he picked up the blazer from his bed and toed on some shoes, exiting his room quietly. He supposed he looked acceptable.

He wandered into the lounge after a moment of standing aimlessly in the hall, and carefully placed his blazer over the back of the loveseat nearest the door. With uninterested eyes, he watched the television play Ryan’s annual Christmas speech, the static nearly overwhelming the screen. His clipping voice trembled through the speakers, remarking some ideological bullshit.

Ryan had begrudgingly accepted the idea of Christmas for it’s commercial value, and so Rapture celebrated it, but not in the way Aleks remembered as a child. It was different, in too many ways to count entirely.

The television whirred suddenly, the noise continuing for a few seconds before the screen completely cut out. Aleks watched with narrowed eyes. Then it flickered once, twice, before an image flooded the screen again. It was a child’s cartoon, exaggerated noises now ringing from the speakers and bright pencil-drawn characters dancing around the display, exclaiming some nonsense. Aleks scoffed. He instead cast his gaze to the coffee table, where the new edition of Rapture Catalogue was sitting there in all it’s pathetic glory, open onto the men’s fashion section.

Aleks sniffed and leant down to pick it up, the flimsy pages flipping open to reveal the first image among many on the page – him, in a dark red suit with a matching tie resting on a crisp white shirt. He inwardly cringed, catching sight of his perfectly gelled brown hair and almost candid expression, looking slightly off to the left.

He dropped the catalogue in fright when the noise of the front door unlocking echoed through the apartment, and the noise of laughing and chatter rung through the household. Aleks inwardly groaned. They were here early.

He checked his watch for confirmation. 3:58pm. Early.

With a huff and an inward sigh, Aleks shifted to kneel next to the television, switch it off, and managed to lunge and throw on his jacket before the door opened and his father, followed by a group of ten or more ‘friends’. His father inspected him with narrowed eyes, and Aleks nodded uncomfortably, moving forward to shake the hands of the first strangers who walked into the lounge. They cooed and flirted, and Aleks laughed along anxiously, managing to escape to the kitchen soon enough.

There was his mother, seated at the breakfast table, hands neatly folded on her lap, head bent in some sort of prayer. Aleks slowly shifted on his feet before he approached her, clearing his throat.

She raised her gaze and smiled stiffly.

“котенок,” She began, voice thick.

“They’re in the lounge,” He responded. She pressed a hand to his jacket sleeve as she stood, brushing off imaginary dust from her skirt and nodding slowly. She pressed a slight kiss to his forehead before shakily stepping out of the room. She was drunk, that much was clear from her eyes alone.

Aleks exhaled and wiped a hand over his face, already exhausted, but he followed her back into the lounge. What ensued was nothing out of the ordinary. Plenty of flirting, small talk, laughing, cooing and compliments, which only increased as more people trickled into the party. Eventually a band began to set up in the corner of the hall, squashed between a fake Christmas tree and a liquor cabinet. A lone violinist played a slow melody that barely resonated around the room.

‘A small affair.’, his mother had said. He scoffed.

Eventually he found himself being dragged along in conversation by an older woman in a suave black dress and hazy eyes, who lit him a cigarette with a snap of her fingers. He smoked carefully, making sure to lower it whenever his father or mother strayed too close, but soon enough he was leading the woman in dance along with the rest of these boring associates, swaying to soft piano and avoiding the woman’s steely gaze as she droned on about her job as a designer – he didn’t listen to much else.

It was when she began to caress his shoulder just a bit too much that he mumbled some fake excuse to leave and slid out of her hold, gently shoving through the little-too-crowded hall until he reached the far wall, near the front door, and leant against it breathlessly, closing his eyes for just a second of peace.

He felt the presence next to him before he saw anyone, and he opened his eyes just as a hand clasped his.

He slowly turned his head and was greeted with brown eyes and a coy smile.

James.

He looked nice. In a suit Aleks knew he couldn’t afford and shoes far too shiny to be anything but new, he fit in nicely with the evening crowd. The suit was a deep blue, purposely faded stripes decorating the fabric, and his tie matched the pattern. His hair was pulled back into a tight bun and his eyes shifted across the room before he leant in close to Aleks, hand tightening it’s grip.

“Good evening, sir,” He greeted in a mockery of some sort of British accent – a terrible one – but it was enough to startle a laugh out of Aleks.

“Good evening,” Aleks responded in a similar sort of accent, before he fell serious. “How did you get in here?”

James gave a sort of smirk before raising his free hand, which had two fingers securing a lit cigarette Aleks hadn’t noticed before. He raised a hand to wave, all whilst pointing out a lone partygoer to Aleks.

“I had a woman on the inside,”

Aleks followed the wave to the woman in the black dress, who was holding up a glass of champagne in her own greeting, a sly smile on her face.

“Oh,” was all Aleks could manage. James hummed in response.

“Going to offer me a drink?” James asked playfully, nudging him as he took a drag of his cigarette and discarded it on the ashtray precariously balanced on the side table. Aleks nodded slowly in response before pushing off the wall and leading James through the party into the kitchen, which was vacated aside from a young woman about their age asleep at their breakfast table, a near-empty glass of champagne by her sleeping figure. Aleks observed her as he poured their own glasses, and raised an eyebrow when James unsurely shook her shoulder. She remained asleep.

James shrugged and took the drink offered to him, sipping it. They stood in silence, the only noise being the rise and falls of breathing from the very intoxicated girl to their right.

Slowly but surely, James wrapped a steady arm around his waist and gently tugged him in for a chaste kiss. It was nothing special, but Aleks smiled into it and draped his free arm around James’ shoulders, tilting his head slightly as the kiss furthered, and soon enough they were making out in the vacated kitchen, the music echoing through the walls, the bass enough to resonate through the floor.

Aleks was dimly aware he was being gently ushered backwards until his back was pressed against the kitchen counter and James was standing in between his legs, hands moving up and down on the small of his back, grin clear even through the kiss. Aleks, although he would never admit it, whimpered slightly, eliciting a pleased hum from James who made a move to tug off Aleks’ jacket before the kitchen door swung open and somebody stumbled in.

James didn’t move for a second – of course he didn’t, he doesn’t have a reputation – but Aleks immediately scrambled away from the counter and cleared his throat, raising his gaze to identify the intruder, who was awkwardly standing in the closed doorway.

“Hello, Trevor,” Aleks greeted, voice cracking.

James simply sipped his champagne, looking between the two in some private observation.

“Hello,” Trevor responded, refusing to make eye contact. “I, uh, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” James spoke up, already pouring another glass of champagne and soon enough, it was being pressed into Trevor’s hand, along with a handshake. “Pleasure to meet you, I’m- “

“I know who you are, thanks,” Trevor cut him off, and Aleks had to blink a few times to process what had just happened. Firstly, Trevor had never interrupted anyone. He was far too polite. Secondly, there was no way Trevor knew who James was. It was out of question. Thirdly, that little handshake had jostled Trevor’s sleeve enough for the array of needle marks to be clear on his forearm. That wasn’t good.

“Always nice to meet a fan,” James said after a second, laughing again. Trevor didn’t laugh back.

Then they were silent again, three idiots and one drunkard all in one kitchen.

“So, Trevor, how have you been?” Aleks started, sipping his champagne and trying to ignore the chills he felt when James moved his hand to wrap round his waist closely.

“Fine,” Trevor responded shortly, but he seemed to feel some semblance of guilt, because he continued. “I mean, yeah, not great,” He shrugged, eyes turning away. “But better,”

“That’s… good,” Aleks responded, and closed his eyes in silent dismay when he realised how utterly useless that response was.

“I was thinking about leaving,” Trevor said out of the blue, placing his flute of champagne down with a _clink_.

“What, work?” Aleks slurred, nudging the still-silent James when he pinched his side with a small smile.

“Rapture,”

The air in the room became heavy. Aleks nearly dropped his glass as he startled, regarding Trevor with owl-like eyes.

“You can’t- that’s not allowed,” He lowered his voice consciously, eyes darting towards the door as he leaned closer to Trevor, James’ hand reluctantly falling from his waist.

“Besides, what’s waiting for you up there?” He continued, practically hissing.

“I don’t know, I just-“ Trevor sighed, unintelligibly waving his hands around in some gesture. “I can’t stay here. I don’t have what you have. I just-“ Trevor stopped, closing his eyes. “Goodnight, Aleks,” And with a resounding nod, Trevor exited the kitchen in a matter of seconds, leaving Aleks and James staring after him in stunned silence.

“Charming,” James managed after a second, eyes cast to the still-full champagne resting on the table.

“Quite,” Aleks responded, eyes glued to the kitchen door.

James tugs at his sleeve in a gesture Aleks supposed was meant to bring about some sort of comfort, but it only made him feel worse. He shook his wrist out of James’ grip, still staring at the door until James stepped in front of him obstructing his view.

“I think,” James began, gently coercing the glass of champagne out of Aleks’ hand. “You’ve had fa-ar too much to drink,”

He was right, Aleks supposed. Even now, his vision was swimming and he felt sick to his stomach, although he doubted that was the alcohol’s whole fault.

“Yeah,” He swallowed, allowing James to lead him towards the door and gently usher into the bustling hall. It just so happened to be their luck that his father was situated just outside the door, noisily talking to some old men – associates, most likely. Aleks gripped James arm just a bit harder when his father saw them. He turned with a grin on his face, ushering Aleks forward.

“-And this is my son, Aleksandr,” He finished, prompting Aleks to exchange handshakes with each of the men, smile only slightly lopsided. “And this is-“ His father stopped, hand resting on James’ upper arm, eyebrows furrowed. He’s realised. “I’m sorry, remind me of your name?”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I’m James, I’m interning at Marchant’s and Co. We haven’t had the opportunity to meet, but I was brought along by your assistant over there,” James recited easily, gesturing with a polite hand to the woman from before.

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” His father responded, kinder than Aleks had ever heard him, with bright eyes. He then turned back to the men, beginning to boast about their renowned internship program – the first in Rapture. James laughed under his breath and Aleks chuckled along, ducking his head as they slipped through the crowd and landed at the foot of the stairs. James stopped then, hand loose on Aleks’ sleeve, who stood a step above him.

“That was ridiculous,” Aleks stated the obvious, cheeks flushed with laughter and alcohol. James shook his head, unable to stop smiling. “Come up with me,” Aleks requested, and James hesitated.

But soon enough they were both collapsing onto Aleks’ bed.

They lay there for a moment, on their sides, staring at each other with the same level of inquisition as when they had first met. James leant in and gently kissed his cheek, palm moving to rest on his jaw.

“Do you love me?” Aleks asked, eyes heavy. It was a stupid, childish question, one that he regretted almost immediately after asking.

James just stared at him quietly, eventually moving his hand away and shifting to lie on his back.

“I suppose,” He replied, voice suddenly flat.

Aleks felt sick to his stomach.

James stayed there that night, and they slept, not touching each other even for a second. And if James noticed how Aleks tossed and turned all night like he was having some unspeakable nightmare, he didn’t say anything.

They awoke the next morning groggy and ill-slept. James had actually awoken Aleks, because one look at his watch told him that they were late for a meeting James was meant to lead. They got dressed as quickly as possible, James in borrowed clothes (the plainest Aleks owned), and left the bedroom, creeping down the stairs. It seemed that everyone in the residence were still sleeping, so they slipped out the front door without much, if any, difficulty.

The elevator ride down to the lobby was tense – if the concept of tense was being pushed against the wall and kissed until breathless and only parting when the doors slide open. They stepped into the lobby with little worry.

That was until James pushed Aleks back, against the wall, and refused to face the rest of the room.

“What- what’s wrong?” Aleks sputtered, keeping his head low too.

“Don’t panic, but they’re looking for us,”

“You mean you?”

“I mean us,”

Aleks peered over and, yes, there was his picture – a nice one, from the catalogue, of him sitting in an ivory coat and a dark hat – printed onto a poster. Next to him was one of James, a mugshot, his hair down and messy, dark eyes wild.

What a contrast.

“What do we do?” Aleks asked, voice rising in pitch as he scrambled to steady his racing heart.

“We walk,” James said simply, and before it could be disputed, Aleks was being tugged through the lobby.

It didn’t go well.

Of course, they were stopped by a lone police officer passing by the doors.

It was a tall, discontent man, who glared at them immediately and as he blew his whistle to call for others, James pulled a pistol from his jacket – where did he get that from? – and shot the officer square between the eyes.

The noise startled Aleks, who ducked and gaped in unabashed shock at the corpse at his feet. James was calling his name, tugging at his arm, but all he could see was the blood pooling on the floor, the screams of terror, and the rapid footsteps of more police officers. Oh God, they were going to die, they were going to-

It was the shock. It was definitely the adrenaline, the horrified stares from strangers, the definite trauma, and the crushing sense of horror as blood began to stain the shiny toes of his shoes, but Aleks couldn’t move, couldn’t even breath, until-

“Go!” James screamed, and everything seemed to fall back into place when Aleks swerved on his heel to begin running. James’ hand slipped into his naturally and they sprinted through the streets, pushing into people and nearly tripping over their own feet. Aleks dared to look behind him; they were being tailed by six officers, all carrying batons and catching up fast. He looked ahead just as they were about to turn a corner, and an officer swerved the corner at the exact same time. They nearly crashed into each other, but James made a quick move and shoved both of them into the shop to their left – a dress shop.

James slid over the counter amidst cries of protest from the shop clerks, and Aleks followed without the grace. He hits his knee on the marble and yeah, it hurt, but every cell in his body was screaming at him to _run_ , so he does, following the shadow of James through the backroom of the shop, knocking over mannequins, the sound of his own heartbeat nearly drowning out the yells to stop by the officers.

They burst out of a backdoor into an unfamiliar street, narrow and winding and basically deserted, and James takes just a moment to stop, grab both his shoulders and presumably ask if he’s okay. It’s difficult to understand.

But then they’re running again, and they’re heading for wherever the road takes them, which happens to be another street lined with stores. Aleks narrowly avoids slipping over when James takes a sudden left into an alleyway, and Aleks can barely hear their chasers anymore, and they might actually be okay, but they’re not because-

An officer steers into the opening behind them and begins moving in close to Aleks, and _shitshitshitshit-_

James tugs him along faster, but they’re barely fast enough and suddenly James stops. He barely computes James saying ‘lean back’ until there’s a familiar hand on his chest pushing him against the wall, and a pistol inches from his face. He understands the situation just in time, because he raises his hands and presses his palms against his ears just as the pistol fires.

Everything is silent.

The world plays in slow motion.

The officer gets shot right in the neck, a perfect enough shot. Aleks feels the warmth of blood on his face before he sees it. James yells something. The ringing in his ears prevails even when James grabs his hand again and they sprint. He knows the police are still chasing them.

His head aches and after a while his legs feel numb, but they don’t stop sprinting until they reach the beginning of the main tunnel to Apollo Square.

“I think we’ve lost them for now,” James says, gun back in his jacket. He watches Aleks with unusually concerned eyes, which is probably fair. “Aleks?”

Aleks doesn’t respond. He stares at the vast blue through the glass windows lining the tunnel and breathes deeply, trying to ignore the drying blood on his face and the sweat lining his forehead.

“We need to get to the warehouse. I can’t imagine they’re far behind,” James continues, stepping towards Aleks to swipe a smudge of blood off his face.

When they step into the warehouse an hour late, covered in blood and sweat, everyone looks up at them. The room falls silent. Lindsey laughs nervously.

“What happened to you?”


	9. bei mir bist du schön

“The plan is the same, Jakob,”

Or so insisted James as he leant precariously over the table, almost hissing in the other man’s face. He had been this hostile all morning. Aleks, reclined in a nearby seat, supposed it must be the stress, but it was mid-afternoon on New Year’s Eve and tensions were already running high.

James finally slumped back in his seat, arms folded as he observed the conversation at the table, mainly consisting of Brett barking orders and others raising hurried concerns and voicing uneasiness.

People were trickling in slowly as to not raise suspicion, but eventually the room was flocked full of people, all concealing weapons in their clothing and hastily sewing fabrics of red onto themselves. The room seemed to be alight, and time rushed by as people busied themselves with preparations.

James made his rounds around the room, and Aleks did think of joining him, but James’ demeanour changed as soon as he began conversation at the first table, becoming the friendly and soft James he knew. Aleks watched with soft interest as James shook the hands of fellow workers and observed when he gently joked with young and old women alike, eyes glinting with ambition and pride. James cycled the room, his laugh ringing out over the crowd as he conversed lightly with his followers, and Aleks watched, with soft awe and the realisation that this man was more than just a parasite – he was a messiah to these people.

He even watched as James taught a young woman how to load a gun, slowly taking the time to explain each function to her with confident hands. She looked at him in wonder.

James eventually found his way back to the table, the atmosphere in the room considerably cheerier. The clock struck seven. Aleks and Asher stood simultaneously, seeming unsure of how to approach the situation. Seven was the cue to leave for the Kashmir.

James watched as they stood and straightened. Aleks and Asher were already dressed, having been completed in the spare hours between cleaning weapons and restating ideas, in nice enough suits. Aleks in a suede red suit, shocking enough to blend into the predictable rainbow of colours that would greet them at the party, and Asher in a classic black suit, not cheap but not expensive, but good enough to conceal the explosives lining his chest.

The room seemed to fall silent, only broken by Brett standing, scraping his chair back and padding towards the two, boots resonating off the ground. He shook Asher’s hand first, and a silent but knowledgeable exchange occurred, one that Aleks couldn’t even begin to decipher. Then, Brett moved to him, pushing out a calloused hand. He took it, shaking his hand gently as Brett regarded him with a small smile.

“Good luck out there,” He said simply.

Aleks nodded, mumbling his thanks and turned to leave – only to be faced with James, who had stood from his chair. Two young children were weaving around his legs, challenging him to some sort of card game he had seen him playing to raise spirits, their high voices jeering and laughing, piercing the silence before they were ushered away by a rosy-cheeked mother.

Aleks paused, almost faltering before James moved his hand to intertwine his fingers with Aleks’. He pressed his forehead against the others and for a brief second, they were caught up in each other’s eyes and hazy smiles. Finally, James stepped away, letting their hands drop and slowly parted their hands.

“Good luck,” He said finally, reaching behind him to locate two masks on the table. They were masquerade, shaped like rabbits. Aleks’ was ivory, laced with flakes of gold around the eyes and base, and Asher’s was a shiny copper, maroon carefully painted upon the corners of the eyes

“Thank you,” Aleks croaked, feeling his eyes sting already as the thought occurred to him – what if he didn’t come back? – before slowly moving around James, heading towards the doors without another look back.

Aleks and Asher walked to the bathysphere station through the winding streets in relative silence, Aleks focusing on relaying the plan over in his head rather than making idle conversation. They reached the station and one transaction and five-minute wait later, they were boarding a bathysphere managed by a scowling teenager, too tired to even take in their faces, let alone raise any sort of alarm. He supposed that was lucky.

Asher sat next to him and offered him an easy smile.

“Nervous?” He started, brushing off invisible specks of dirt from his trousers.

“Yeah,” Aleks managed.

Asher shrugged. “Probably for the best,”

Aleks didn’t know what that meant, and he was hesitant to pursue the answer.

They stopped at station-after-station, at Outer Persephone, two other followers boarded the bathysphere, offering them knowing smiles before getting off at the next stop. One of them had a satchel carefully placed over their shoulder, no doubt filled to the brim with explosives.

At the Welcome Centre, Aleks and Asher stepped off the vehicle, and seemed to simultaneously take a deep breath before walking across the platform and out the front doors, already slipping their masks onto their faces.

And there it was, the Kashmir Restaurant.

Red and gold in it’s glory, the building stood tall, practically filled to the brim with the elites of Rapture accompanied by midnight-blue fliers advertising the very event. Two very impolite waiters stood at the entrance, inspecting invitations and accordingly either inviting them in, or sending them crashing to the sidewalk. Aleks was subconsciously aware of Asher’s arm looping around his before they were linked, walking in tow towards the entrance, appearing more than calm despite Aleks’ rapid pulse and sweat breaking out on the surface of his skin. Asher was fine, however, a nonchalant presence to Alek’s left.

They both stood on the steps to the front door, and Aleks produced the invitation with a casual air, watching as the waiter scanned it carefully with concise precision. The invitations include no names, so it would be simple enough to gain access into the restaurant. Eventually, the waiter allowed them in with a sniff and a gesture towards the door.

That was a relief.

The restaurant seemed to be less crowded on the inside but was still insufferably so. People swayed on the clear floor to soft piano music, in contrast to the calm guests seated at their respective tables, picking at bowls of caviar and gingerly sipping flutes of champagne. Aleks first located their seats and gently placed his jacket over the chair. Asher didn’t do the same. They sat and were instantly offered small dishes of appetisers and fruits, all of which they declined.

Despite the polite chatter and twinkling piano that bounced of the walls of the restaurant, the silence between the two men was deafening.

“Look,” Aleks gently nudged Asher and gestured across a room to a woman with a frizzy bob of brown hair and a tall, slender frame. “That’s Tenenbaum; the engineer of the Little Sisters,”

It was a cheap tactic to spark some sort of conversation, one that Aleks predicted would go smoothly. He was wrong.

Asher tensed.

“I know,” He began, before clearing his suddenly hoarse throat. “She… _they_ took my niece,”

“Oh… shit,” Aleks said gormlessly, straightening up. “Sorry to hear that,”

Asher didn’t respond. The clock struck ten.

It was a matter of time before Aleks was recognised, and it occurred exactly on time.

“I know you,” were the beginning words of a redhead with soft green eyes and pouty lips as she shuffled closer to him, reeking of wine.

“Ah,” Aleks managed, raising his head to peer at her. “I’m charmed,”

“You were at Cohen’s show,” She slurred.

“Yes,” he responded shortly.

Asher tugged at his sleeve gently.

 “You – You’re _wanted_ ,” She forced out, and Asher suddenly stood, obviously alarmed. Aleks was frozen in his seat. Asher slowly reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and – _no, that would ruin the entire plan –_ withdrew his pistol, only stopped by Aleks finally finding it in himself to stand and block the view from the rest of the room, placing his hand on Asher’s and gently ushering the gun back into his place.

They stood for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Aleks asked unsurely, wavering in his stance as he stepped back.

“Fine,” Asher responded, sounding anything but fine.

Aleks turned back around, prepared to improvise some convoluted explanation, but the woman was gone, replaced by an empty glass and a crease on the tablecloth. That was worrying.

Asher voiced this.

“Think she’s going to report this?”

“Somehow I doubt it,” Aleks responded, scanning the room for any sight of the woman. Nothing. She was absolutely gone, and it was totally unclear where she had even went.

“Aleks, I’m going to go,” Asher said shortly, and Aleks only nodded. Asher departed with a soft pat to his elbow before embarking towards the bar. That was where they had planned to plant the bombs, under the bar, in the very centre of the room. Aleks watched him go, watched him gently move behind the bar and duck down, unbeknownst to the stressed staff preoccupied with calmly deterring some furious businessmen.

“Is there any way I can help, sir?”

The voice of a confident waiter hardly startled Aleks, only made him flinch at the sudden burst of crimson smoke to his right. The waiter was using a new-ish plasmid, popular among high-end restaurant staff for the level of showmanship it offered. Appearing and reappearing at will was quite an impression, after all. Aleks had a faint memory of Anna telling him that it was simply an invisibility plasmid, and that there were multiple waiters, all positioned at different points, and all appearing at different times. The theory was ridiculous, and hilarious at the time, but now it left a sour taste in Aleks’ mouth. The waiter lingered for a moment, seeming to hesitate on leaving him alone due to the lack of response until Aleks interjected.

“Could I have a cigarette?” He asked, words slurring in a panic-driven rush. “Please,”

“Of course,” The man withdrew the carton from his pocket – policy to always carry one for smoking patrons – and held it out to Aleks, flipping open the lid. Aleks carefully withdrew one with only slightly shaky hands, placing it between his lips and watching as the waiter neatly clicked his fingers and held his newly ignited finger to the cigarette. It lit, and Aleks mumbled his thanks. The waiter disappeared in an instant.

Asher, now returned with a rumpled shirt, shot him a disapproving stare.

“What?” Aleks questioned, after removing the cigarette from his mouth and flicking ash onto the immaculate tiled floor. He received the same disapproving look from an old woman sitting a few seats away, to whom Aleks hurriedly apologised to.

“What’s with all the dancing?” Asher questioned casually, folding his arms and gesturing towards the couples swaying on the floor, a sharp contrast from the rough and fast dancing Aleks had become so fond of seeing back in the warehouse.

“We missed dinner by four hours. What else are they supposed to do?” Aleks responded, taking a drag of his cigarette as he idly observed the band.

“We need to fit in,” Asher said, a question left unasked. Aleks sighed and put out his cigarette on the dish fixed to the centre of the table – a waste, really – and turned to look at Asher. This was all a distraction, absolutely, nothing more. But he did feel a twinge of guilt, for some unknown reason. Nevertheless, he took Asher’s hand and confidently led him to the outskirts of the dance floor. He was obviously not accustomed to the formal dancing commonly practiced in upper class occasions, so Aleks carefully placed a hand on the middle of his back, nodding as Asher placed a hand on his shoulder. They joined their free hands and began to dance.

It wasn’t romantic, or even good. But it was enough.

Asher kept his eyes down. Aleks looked straight ahead.

“Aleks,” Asher began, and then they were staring right at each other, and something in Aleks lurched at the absolute panic in Asher’s eyes. “They’re here,”

It was true. One look around and Aleks could see police officers, smartly dressed but obviously on patrol, cautiously peering around the restaurant. They knew. Oh God, they knew.

“What are we going to do?” Aleks asked, worry lacing his hushed words.

“Shut up,”

“What?”

“Listen,”

So, he did.

Televisions suspended on the ceilings whirred to life, displaying a muted ‘please stand by’ message before flickering to life. It was Andrew Ryan, well dressed and holding a flute of champagne in his hand as he acknowledged the camera. The bar fell silent.

 “Good evening, my friends,” He began, looking perturbed, to say the least. “I hope you are enjoy your New Year’s Eve celebration. It has been a year of trials for us all.” He seemed to fall sorrowful then, looking away as if in contemplation. Aleks scoffed. “Tonight, I wish to remind each of you that Rapture is your city. It was your strength of will that brought you here, and with that strength, you shall rebuild. And so, Andrew Ryan offers you a toast. To Rapture, 1959. May it be our finest year,”

The room filled with an echo of ‘To Rapture!’. The televisions died, and everyone sipped their drinks in celebration before a hush fell over the room.

Everyone was counting all of a sudden. Aleks looked around, witnessing couples in embrace and businessmen clinking drinks, all whilst laughing and clinking drinks in contempt.

10

Aleks held his breath, hand still resting on Asher’s back.

9

He reached into his inside pocket with his other hand, Asher doing the same.

8

A small hand tugged at the end of his jacket.

7

Aleks looked down.

6

A kid, no older than eight, with wild brown hair and lost eyes, mumbling something about being lost.

5

Lost.

4

Aleks stopped.

3

Asher looked at him in concern, then at the child.

2

Aleks turned to the other, feeling sick.

1

“I can’t do this,”

_‘Happy New Year!’_

The bombs erupted instantly, shattering glasses and bottles behind the bar, slumping too-close patrons over the bar’s surface. The banner fell from the ceiling. Screams erupted. The chandelier collapsed, shards of glass and diamond scattering across the tile. Asher yelled something, silence to Aleks’ deaf ears, and gunshots erupted as other followers burst through doors and windows, shooting and yelling protests. Aleks was frozen with a scared kid at his knee, horrified screams lacing every breath he took.

In a swift motion, he seemed to regain his surroundings and ducked the kid’s head down, shoving him underneath a table and stepping back, almost slipping on a pool of blood. Asher was not far, ruthlessly shooting at a police officer until he fell, dead. A now unmasked Asher looked around, wild eyes meeting Aleks, and grinned, blood caking on his face and in his hair, until he saw the state of Aleks and carefully jogged closer, avoid the dead bodies piling on the floor as their fellow followers stormed the patrons, holding guns to their faces and shooting them without care, without second thought.

“Aleks, are you okay? Aleks?” Asher was asking, close to his face with his eyebrows furrowed. He turned in time to shoot down a constable, not dead but injured enough so that he’d bleed out in a matter of minutes.

“I can’t fucking do this,” He croaked, and Asher seemed almost surprised, almost angry at that statement. But he shook his head, raised Alek’s pistol-wielding hand and pushed it closer into his palm.

“For the cause,”

“For the cause,”

Aleks nodded, took a deep breath, and with a shaky hand, aimed and fired at the next person he saw not draped in ribbons of red. It was the redhead woman, with terror in her eyes. He shot her in the ribs. She fell immediately, head smacking against the tile in a sickening noise. He felt sick to the stomach, but there was no time to dwell, because Asher was clutching his shoulder, and yelling that they needed _to leave, right fucking now_ , and they were rushing through mazes of tables and chairs, and Aleks tripped a small dead hand emerging from beneath one of the tables, and he couldn’t breathe, but now they were outside the restaurant, and there weren’t that many police, they must be dealing with the other riots, but Asher was tugging him into a dark corner, looking at him through glazed eyes.

“Aleks, hey, I need you to focus, okay? You’re losing blood fast, so we’re going to meet up with James quickly, so I need you to keep up, okay? It’s a long walk to Apollo Square, but we can make it. Are you listening?” He asked, prodding at Aleks’ side, for a reason he couldn’t quite figure out until he peered down and took in the quickly growing stain of red on his white shirt. “Aleks?”

“Yeah, I’m…” he trailed off, feeling his hand loose mobility and drop the gun to the ground, the clatter deafening amidst the chaos.

He didn’t get to finish because Asher was already tugging him after him, and he felt his legs moving faster and faster as they reached the opening of the tunnels that looped and connected the different factions of Rapture, and then they were speeding through them, barrelling through crowds of drunken youth and chortling businessman, disregarding of the events having just taken place in nine different areas of Rapture, even ignoring the noise of the speakers overhead as they chimed out repeated warnings in a cheerful voice.

“This is an emergency message from Ryan Industries. There has been an incident at the Kashmir Restaurant, please return to the safety of your homes until further notice. Thank you!”

They kept running, weaving in and out of tunnels. Aleks almost thought they might be safe until he heard the beeping of security bots. That was a terrible sign. Aleks voiced this through uneven breaths, not unintelligible but not clear enough to make Asher look immediately. When he did look, he cursed, and swerved them into the entrance to Fort Frolic, where panic was already in place. A bar – _the_ bar James and Aleks visited on their trip to Fort Frolic – was in ruins, corpses slumped over rubble. He barely had time to look before he was chasing after Asher towards a bot shutdown panel, the weapons still just behind them. Asher immediately managed to swing the front panel open with some quick trick and twisted a few dials to reroute the circuitry and in a matter of seconds, the bot was down, mechanics crashing to the floor.

Aleks sighed in relief, but Asher wasn’t done as he grabbed Aleks’ wrist and tugged him back towards the entrance to the tunnel, and they were running again.

“Fancy seeing you here!” Yelled a joyful voice, and Aleks looked to his right to see James suddenly running alongside them, blood splotched over his features and a wide grin on his face. Aleks was seriously going to be sick, and it wasn’t just the blood loss from the would James had just noticed. “What happened?”

“Just a surface would, but deep enough to make him lose blood; fast,” Asher replied in the tone used to describe the weather.

“Shit, okay. We’re close, I’m pretty sure Brett could patch him up,”

The _If he comes back_ was unspoken.

They were relatively unbothered by police officers who, according to James’ breathy explanation, were busy at the Farmers Market, where several bombs had gone off in rapid succession, joined by hordes of his followers.

Aleks was indescribably relieved at that.

They made it back to Apollo Square unharmed, for the most part, bursting through the door to meet about fifty others, all seated and tending to their own wounds, both major and minor. Aleks was led by James’ careful hands to a seat at their usual table, and hands prodded at his side. It was so tiring.

“Aleksandr, come on. Stay awake,” James was pleading, clicking his fingers in front of his face.

Aleks couldn’t. He closed his eyes, exhaled once, and fell asleep soundlessly, with no indication of ever waking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for the patience regarding this fic!  
> im actually glad to be at the point where stuff is actually happening in this plot haha
> 
> oh and btw a prequel was added so maybe you could check that out for some ~backstory~


	10. nocturne in e-flat major, op. 9, no. 2

Rapture was cold, at the best of times.

Of course, that was to be expected; there wasn’t exactly a lot of sunlight streaming through miles and miles of deep sea, but the city had this sort of undeniable chill that ran through every store, citizen, and building. Naturally, the cold had tried to be combatted – plasmids, tanning bays and vitamin supplements all tried to falsely replicate the warmth of the sun, all to little to no avail. Nothing was warm in Rapture.

Aleks was cold when he finally woke up.

The first thing he registered was the pain. It bloomed on his side, a steady ache pulsing through his body as making him grit his teeth as he slowly sat up, only worsening the pain. A quick hand to his bare side identified the roughness of a bandage hastily wrapping around his middle. The bandages were dry.

The world was far too bright when Aleks tried to crack his eyes open. White, sterile light flared in his vision after a second try, which eventually cleared so that Aleks could identify his surroundings. He was… home. Yes, he was lying in his bed in his room, a quiet relief. The room looked untouched, almost immaculate if not for a few factors; for one, the wallpaper next to his open door was peeling, revealing the white underneath as it slumped from it’s place on the wall; the window had a miniscule crack at the bottom left, almost unnoticeable; and there was something red smeared on the sheets on his bed.

Logically, Aleks thought, it must be blood. It made sense, given his state and apparent injury, but a tentative touch to the red stain proved it to be sticky, like syrup. It was ADAM.

God, of course it was.

The red was smeared over his hand too, a waxy dryness, alongside yellowing bruises and clear syringe imprints. Someone had been giving him ADAM to speed up his recovery – a common practice, but for what reason? What all-important reason did he have to recover so quickly?

After a few moments, Aleks found it in himself to swing his legs over the bed and push off the ground, into a shaky stand. He was wearing a pair of day slacks, black and covered in actual blood this time. He shuddered, watching as the dry flakes fluttered from the material onto the carpet. It took a few tries, but he managed to carefully walk to his bedroom door without being sick and slipped out, wincing at the brighter light. There was definite noise from downstairs – footsteps. Aleks shuffled towards the balcony overseeing part of the reception area of their apartment and, seeing nothing, realised he would have to face the stairs. Besides, he felt far too ill to even yell for help.

The stairs went surprisingly well – aside from nearly breaking his ankle slipping on a scrap of crimson material, Aleks made it downstairs almost seamlessly. He caught his breath at the foot of the stairs and then, hand daintily pressed to the bandages at his side, shoved open the kitchen door with a shaky hand.

The kitchen looked the same as always; clean, a fresh newspaper neatly folded on the breakfast table, a pot of oatmeal resting on the stove. Aleks observed this with calm eyes, only flaring up when he saw a figure. It was a man, facing away from him and hunched over the counter, perhaps reading or writing something. He obviously hadn’t heard him enter. Aleks carefully stepped forwards, and of course that’s when the kitchen door decided to click back into place in it’s doorframe. The noise was miniscule, but to Aleks, it felt as if it had shook the entire building.

The figure turned.

Aleks held his breath.

It was James.

James. Nova. James, with his sleek bun and soot-blackened fingertips, with his neatly trimmed beard and scuffed boots.

“You’re awake.” James began.

Aleks nodded, sighing in relief. It was just Nova, with his bright smiles and crinkled eyes, with blood streaming down his face and dead bodies at his feet. James, who had killed so many, who had needlessly murdered the innocent for a cause – what cause?

Aleks felt so muddled.

Nevertheless, James neared him like nothing was wrong, hands outstretched as if taming a wild dog. Perhaps he could see the franticness in his eyes.

Aleks acted on instinct.

He swung at James, but his movements were sluggish, as if underwater, and James easily dodged the hit, acknowledging Aleks with bored eyes.

“Yeah, figured you might do that,” He murmured under his breath as Aleks tried to regain what strength he had left, brain feeling so cloudy and unkempt. He tried to focus on what was happening, tried to clear the immense fog in his mind, tried to gather what memories he could.

“How have they not found us – how long was I out?” He slurred, bracing one hand against the counter, stomach lurching.

“You’re presumed dead. Jakob made sure of that; manipulated some files a few days ago,” James replied casually, followed by, “And a week, give or take.”

_A week?_

“You – you fucking let me sleep for a week?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” And then, in a much lower voice. “Not my fault you got injured doing jackshit,”

Aleks swallowed, eyebrows furrowing. He was awake now, feeling as if the ADAM had drained out of his system, dripping from his fingertips onto the tile. The fog had cleared, and now it was storming.

He swung at James again, and this time, got a hit. He obviously wasn’t expecting it, and neither was Aleks, wincing as his knuckles exploded in pain. James pressed an uncertain hand to his face, feeling the growing numbness and watching with quiet calmness as the slightest smudge of blood came off on his fingertips.

Aleks had split his cheekbone. How, he had no idea; he had thrown a punch maybe twice in his life.

But, here he was, watching James stare at his fingertips in silence as they stood in a ghostly kitchen, where not even wind could break the stuffy silence in the room.

“Good hit,” James remarked softly.

Then he lunged for Aleks. It was fast; James had almost definitely been in more fights than him, in scuffles outside bars and confrontations with anyone willing to throw a few punches, but Aleks had not been prepared for how fast James moved to hit him.

And he did – landed a clean punch on Aleks’ jaw. He didn’t feel it so much, it was a slight sting and then the numbness of a blunt force. He did wince though, and fell back from the sheer impact, landing against the counter and hitting his back, hard. James glared at him, and Aleks glared right back.

“You asshole, what do you mean, doing jackshit? I put this whole fucking revolution together!” Aleks exclaimed, straightening up slowly, hand moving to feel at the site of the punch.

James scoffed.

“ _You?_ You’re saying I did nothing at all?!”

“Oh, excuse me, I forgot. You put some fucking blueprints together.”

“I did more than that,”

“Uh, shit, almost forgot. You kidnapped a civilian for _a statement_. Did you make that statement, James? Or did you just knock me out for your own sick pleasure?”

He got another hit for that. It was harder than that last, landing right on his mouth, and he tasted the blood before he processed the pain. He straightened up again from where his knees buckled and spat blood onto the tiles, watching the shock of red as it gathered on the white tiles. That one hurt.

It was impeccable timing when a cheerful voice spoke up through the speakers, presumably another one of Rapture’s infomercials.

“Nova is a friend of the parasites. Don’t be a friend of Nova’s.” chimed the voice, accompanied by the classic jingle, and then dead silence.

He glared up at James through the strands of greasy hair falling in front of his eyes and suddenly he was back in the lobby of his office building, kneeling on the ground and being threatened by a man in red ribbons amidst the crying of other innocent people.

“You’re not a fucking, uh, revolutionary, or whatever you want to call yourself. You’re evil.”

James sneered.

Aleks straightened up, ignoring the feeling of blood trickling down his chin. He needed to get out of here, his own house. Not his house. His parents’ house. That rose the question of-

“Where is my mother?” He asked after a moment, voice cracking.

“Huh?” James responded in a displeased tone, already turned away and scowling at the open newspaper. Aleks could almost see what he was looking at; a report of the bombings. If they were speaking of it a week later, it must’ve been a success.

“My mother,” He managed, panic swelling in his chest as he pressed a clammy hand to his jaw, feeling the growing swelling there. “My father. Where are they?”

James fell quiet, hand mid-turn of the page.

“They left three days ago.” His voice was hardly above a murmur. “I don’t know where they went. They just packed their bags in the night and were gone the next morning,”

Aleks was stunned. They really didn’t care about him. He was hurt, injured, bedridden, and they just left without a moment’s hesitation; fled in the night like ghosts.

“Oh,” He said softly, nodding in understanding as if to alleviate his own shock.

“Sorry,” James offered, placing a tentative hand on Aleks’ shoulder. Aleks turned then, felt the blood running down his jaw and watching the blood on James’ face slowly trickle out like honey. They were close, and Aleks knew it was foolish and immature and selfish, but he kissed him, smearing blood onto his chin and clutching the front of his shirt like his life depended on it.

James paused before kissing back, a faltering hand tracing upwards to rest on his jaw, gently pressing against the newly developing bruise there and tilting his head ever so slightly.

Aleks broke off the kiss first.

They stood in mutual silence, James’ hand still on his jaw and crimson smeared on his face, eerily reminiscent of the blood streaked liberator he had seen a week prior. James observed him with soft, glazed eyes and moved his thumb to carefully wipe the blood from his chin, smiling weakly.

Aleks hated him.

“We should head back to the warehouse,” He began, letting go of Aleks and stepping back as if he felt it impolite to linger for much longer. “We need to figure out our next move. We were due there about an hour ago, but I wasn’t sure if you were going to wake up anytime soon.”

“Yeah. Uh, okay. Sure.” Aleks nodded, struggling to hear James over the rushing of blood in his ears.

So, he got ready. He bathed (after carefully undressing the would to reveal a prominent scar etched along his ribs, already partially healed), dressed in the first clothes he saw – a white shirt and copper slacks – and met James in the kitchen again exactly an hour later. His lip was still split, but James looked worse, the cut on his cheekbone still oozing thin blood despite clearly having been cleaned in the short time Aleks was gone.

They disembarked as quickly as possible, and for the most part, Olympus Heights looked fine enough. It was emptier, that was for sure, and for a reason Aleks would rather not think about, but looked nearly the same. They headed towards the bathysphere station, keeping their heads down the entire way and ducking in and out of alleys and shadows, avoiding the stares of terrified civilians. They were so close to the bathysphere station when a mechanical groan practically shook the ground. Aleks ducked back against a wall, heart bouncing in his chest. James calmly looked on, eyes scanning their surroundings.

“Is that a, uh…” Aleks began.

“Yes,” James interrupted, sharply inhaling before grabbing Aleks’ hand and tugging him to the front of the next building; a café, where they could hide behind pastel pink table umbrellas. Aleks peeked out from under one to see the subject of the noise.

It was a Big Daddy – a hulking mass of machinery storming it’s way through the street, taking large, deafening steps and practically resonating with noise. It was led by a Little Sister, eyes gleaming and grinning, skipping along despite her greying complexion and yellowing eyes. Big Daddies were a common sight – but not in public. They could be glimpsed on the outer walls of Rapture, drilling into the seabed for resources and repairing leaks; the work nobody wanted to do. But Aleks had never seen one walking around.

“Why are they here?” He whispered as James dragged him into a slim alleyway.

“They’re protectors now. The city… The city began to splice – everyone’s doing it to protect themselves. ADAM is running low, and that’s what the Little Sisters are carrying. They had to do _something,_ I guess,”

As if a foreboding, Aleks heard the roar of the machine and looked just in time to see it drilling into an obviously spliced civilian, blood and guts splashing in every direction. The Little Sister was wailing, but as soon as the corpse fell to the ground, she clambered onto the Big Daddy’s back and they continued on their way, trampling over the pool of guts on the tile.

“Oh, fuck,” Aleks uttered, jaw slack as he watched the murder.

It was inhumane.

“Yeah. Not exactly what we had in mind,” James responded casually, before gently patting Aleks’ elbow. “C’mon, we have stuff to do,”

They slipped through the alleyway just as a group of working-class women glumly marched into the scene before crouching down to gently scrub at the blood caking the ground as other women tossed the mess of guts and flesh back into a plain crate, which they swiftly carried away. They looked miserable.

Aleks made it through to the other side and winced. They were on a street he had never seen before, and that was probably for a reason; if Olympus Heights had slums, this would be it, but Aleks couldn’t be totally sure if this area had always looked this way. James seemed undeterred however, until they both had to jump to the side to avoid a stranger frantically running past, yelling and screaming. They were gone as soon as they appeared.

“What the fuck,” James nervously laughed. Aleks didn’t laugh, just stared at the figure’s apparent destination. “Aleks, hey, you alright?”

“Yeah, yeah, just…” he trailed off before turning back to James. “How are we going to get to Apollo Square?”

It was a valid question; there was no doubt that the bathyspheres would be shut down or heavily patrolled, and it was unlikely they would be able to walk through the tunnels without getting caught.

“You’re not going to like it,” James stated, followed by Aleks scoffing.

It was only when they were stood at the entrance of a practically ancient tunnel far beyond repair that Aleks realised that James was definitely right.

“This is a joke, right?” he deadpanned, stepping closer to the doors that should’ve been automatic, but were since permanently closed for disrepair. He flipped up a ‘NOVA! He’s your pal!’ poster to peer at the official report on the tunnel. It had been closed for repair since 1955.

Aleks knew this place. He had gone here to write a report on the tunnel’s reparations when he had been issued to the city management sector of his building, and they forced him to write an indicative report of the tunnel’s damages and what local architects were doing as a solution. He doubted he ever submitted the report.

“Well, how else were we going to get around?” James responded, already fiddling with the panel on the left of the doors and messing with the complex wires there, causing Aleks to jump back in fright when the doors slid open with a creak. There was nobody around, thankfully, because the door was in an almost abandoned part of Rapture also in disrepair, full of leaks and creaky infrastructures.

James kicked at the open frame of the door until it wedged open slightly further with a displeased groan, shuddering slightly. James stepped inside first after a careful manoeuvre between the doors, boots landing on the untouched tile and turning to face Aleks, who was wearingly standing at the edge of the doors, sniffing at the rust coating the frame of the door.

“Aleks, come on. We’ll be there in no time,” James tried, interrupted by Aleks closing his eyes and quickly, as if not to think about it, shoved his way into the tunnel.

The tunnel was awful – it felt like they were under more pressure than when they were already 2096 meters beneath the ocean. It was dead silent, pierced by the croak of the door closing behind them, to which they both startled.

Aleks started walking first, taking deceivingly confident steps down the tile. James followed after briefly surveying the door, seeming to finally understand the danger of the structure they were in. It was a nice view, at least. The glass of the tunnel was somewhat outdated – beige and covered in algae at some points – but fish of brilliant colours still whizzed past the windows accompanied by the smooth silhouette of some pearl-gray squid. James caught up to Aleks, but said nothing, barely brushing shoulders with him.

It was nice, actually; the calmest Aleks had felt in months.

They were nearly halfway there; the tunnel practically cut straight through Rapture, intersected by doors every few metres. For safety, or something.

That was when Aleks felt the rain on his cheek.

 He hadn’t felt rain in years, not since he was at sea on a rickety old lifeboat, his mother cooing to him in panicked Russian as they were led to a great lighthouse in the middle of the choppy waves. It was cold and sweet, and landed on his temple, gently trickling down his cheek and down his chin. Aleks raised his head to meet another drop, this time landing directly on his nose and trickling down to cross his mouth. It was salty, like sea foam.

James had stopped when Aleks trailed behind and turned back to stare, to ask him _what’s the fucking hold up?_ when he saw the droplet land on his face.

They seemed to realise the problem at the same time.

Their heads moved slowly, as if delaying the problem would make it disappear, to peer at the source of the water. It was a small, hardly noticeable crack in the glass that was gently filtering in water to form a small puddle on the ground. The puddle was small and new – they must’ve somehow damaged the glass when opening the ancient door. Aleks wiped the water off his face.

“That’s a…” James couldn’t articulate what he was seeing.

“Yeah,” Aleks replied to a question James didn’t and couldn’t ask.

The crack decided to chime in on the conversation by splitting the glass further, creating a deep cut of glass about a foot long above them. Aleks’ blood ran cold. He was first to move, taking a quiet step back, hand batting aimlessly at James arm. They had to get out of there, and quick.

James looked back at Aleks, a single drop of water running down his brow and catching on his eyelashes and – God, he looked every bit as terrified as Aleks. His deep eyes were dilated in panic and his hand trembled as he pointed a shaky hand to the rest of the tunnel, behind Aleks. The door was right there; getting past it and making sure it closed would ensure their safety.

Aleks turned on his heel and lunged forward to get to the door just as the crack began to hiss with pressure. James caught his arm.

That was when Aleks saw the problem through the amber-tinted glass of the door.

Eight or so policemen were calmly walking down the tunnel, accompanied by a dozen security bots and guns in their hands. Aleks swayed on the spot at the sight, heart hammering in his throat.

They knew they’d come here.

The crack hissed again, and finally gave way.

It wasn’t a huge explosion of glass and seawater like Aleks had expected, considering the pressure and structural integrity of the since abandoned tunnel; but the glass did shatter significantly, leaving a hole about the size of Aleks’  hand for water to rush through, lining the tiled floors in a thin layer of clear and icy water. Sirens began for flooding, but it was barely heard over the insistent charge of water into the tunnel. The doors to both sides of them immediately locked in place. They were as good as dead.

“Fuck!” James exclaimed, shielding his head as water surged in further. The water was up to their shins now, with no sign of stopping. “Fuck, what are we going to do? Aleksandr, you okay?” He seemed to rush out, hands uselessly grasping at the iron framework of the otherwise glass tunnel. Aleks caught sight of the tunnel on the other side, utilised for the Big Daddies and any other brave souls burdened with the reparations for Rapture.

Aleks didn’t reply, just squinted at the breakage, ignoring the chill of water as it crept up to lap at his knee.

“James, your gun,” He said slowly, testing the words on his tongue as if it was the first time he had even spoken.

“What?” James barked, but was already reaching for the pistol and pressing it into his hand.

Aleks carefully aimed, using both hands to point the pistol towards the source of the flooding. He exhaled, trying to ignore the concerned gaze of James as the water began to reach their hips. Before he fired, however, he removed one hand to gently place it on James shoulder, offering him a somewhat sorrowful stare.

“What I’m about to do is, uh, fucking crazy,” he said, words rolling over like felt. “The waters gonna start filling up fast, but you have to trust me,”

James responded with a curt nod.

Aleks fired.

The glass split again and water raced through the new wound, nearly filling the tunnel entirely in a matter of seconds. Aleks shoved James up to the opening as water rocked at his jaw, observing as James mercilessly fought against the heavy current of the falling water to break out on the other side.

He watched with a squint as James gripped onto the mechanical ladder installed onto the outside of all of the tunnels. It was hard to see him through the rapid waterfall occurring through the glass, but Aleks followed suit, fighting against the seafoam to break through to the outside of Rapture, lungs already protesting. He gripped onto the algae-infested ladder without sign of ever letting go, and followed James, who was already ahead, shoving himself down the ladder.

Aleks found their escape almost immediately; a white door, more like a hatch, nestled between in an airlock between two unidentifiable buildings. The outside was almost impossible to open, and it took a few seconds of panicked work to force the door open and to pile into the small room. Bubbles dragged from the corner of their mouths as they struggled for air until the door to the exterior of Rapture closed and all remaining water was drained from the room rapidly.

They both took a gasping breath as the water was drained away.

James fell at Aleks’ legs, weakened and coughing, and Aleks ducked to catch him. He was pale, hair stuck to his forehead and shoulders as it had come undone from it’s normal bun. Aleks supposed he must not look much better.

As they waited for the airlock to stabilise, according to the automated voice installed, Aleks peered through the glass to watch the tunnel fall, ricocheting off a large boutique as it sank to the watery depths. It was almost sad. The airlock doors finally opened and Aleks squinted to identify their location; it was nowhere he had been before.

“Persephone,” James stated as he shakily stepped out.

“Like… the prison?” Aleks asked, following suit and taking a step onto the yellowing tiles.

“Like the prison,” James confirmed.

Persephone smelt like it was rotting; and it looked that way too. The modern and sleek black, blues, and emerald greens of Rapture were replaced by unsightly shades of beige and orange. It wasn’t how Aleks had imagined; Persephone was a place for the worst of the worst. So where were the guards? The cells? Instead, the area was coated in rubble and rust, seemingly abandoned.

Luckily for them, the surrounding area was almost abandoned. They had found themselves on the outskirts of the district, just inside the entrance of the prison. Aleks realised this could be where they flushed out those who had done the unspeakable. He took wary steps towards James, who had gone ahead and was staring up at the ‘welcome’ sign.

Persephone most definitely had signs of being a functioning district; a vast window overlooked the reception area and the single desk and chair facing a rather pathetic waiting area. Algae coated the walls and paint was peeling off the ceiling, flaking off occasionally. Large lettering stated the prison’s name.

James was observing all of this with his hands lightly resting on his hips, almost looking on in marvel.

“What happened here?” Aleks asked, coming up to stand beside him.

“It was overthrown,” James answered easily, stepping towards a haphazardly plastered poster of him and inclining his head to observe it closer, almost looking confused. “I suppose you wouldn’t know. it was never reported,” He sniffed, and tore down the poster in a swift motion. It was a common one, one Aleks had seen countless times. “Rapture had no room for scandal and panic, especially not from the prison.”

Aleks nodded. “Who overthrew it?”

“Uh, Lamb. Some batshit psychiatrist – used to be real close to Ryan until she became a little too smart, I guess. Tried to take over Rapture. He locked her up in here instead. She rose up and escaped and now this place is just a breeding ground for splicers and cultists,” As if on cue, a scream rose up from somewhere within. James’ eyes shifted back to Aleks. “We better go,”

Aleks turned and approached the elevator behind them, calling it with no real expectation for it to greet them; but it did. The elevator door opened with a worrying creak and they both got in. Aleks hovered over the buttons for a while until James leant over to press ‘3’ with a nod. Aleks coughed, leaning back on his heels.

“I was in here,” James stated after the conversation halted as the elevator ascended. “Got arrested in 1953,”

It wasn’t exactly a surprise to Aleks.

“What’d you do?” He asked, voice coming out unnaturally breathy.

“Killed a supervisor. Bludgeoned him in my lunch hour,” He almost seemed to laugh at that, shaking his head.

Aleks tried not to sound stunned – he had watched this man kill hundreds – hell, _he_ had killed – but the almost carefree nature of the confession was, at the very least, startling.

“Oh,” He managed, subconsciously edging away.  James caught his hand immediately, and Aleks looked at the contact and then looked directly at James, who had his head titled down, staring at him through wide, dark eyes.

“It was for the greater good,” He started, and Aleks gave him a thin smile and a short nod.

“Okay,” Was all he managed before the elevator stopped, creaking open. James let go of his hand.

They were in Outer Persephone now, where prisoners would check through security and medical examinations in order to get into the prison. They could walk straight through the thinly curtained medical examination room and reach a bathysphere, still functioning.

Aleks pointed this out.

James surveyed the route, shrugging. “It’s risky but,” He raised an arm to point at an adjacent tunnel. “That leads us to Fontaine Futuristics, which is the last place we want to be. They’ll catch us in seconds,”

So they headed towards the curtains, and James swept them back, revealing the room. It looked normal; a pale blue chair sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by counters and a black wheeled stool. It was normal, if only the dried blood in every crevice of the room could be unimagined.

Aleks turned his head away, the scent hitting him first. James made a disapproving ‘ew’ noise, but walked ahead anyway, avoiding touching the creeping blood on the adjacent curtain as he swept it aside. Aleks rapidly followed, trying not to look at the blood on every surface. They eventually made it towards the bathysphere.

The door opened after one tug and they both stepped in, swaying as the bathysphere bobbed on the surface of the water. Aleks flipped the switch, stopping at the glowing sign stating their chosen location; Apollo Square, and the bathysphere was about to descend, until a figure slammed into the bathysphere, smearing ADAM over the window.

Aleks screamed, clutching onto James, who shook him off.

“What the fuck?” James exclaimed, slamming the ‘emergency stop’ button.

The bathysphere rose again and, to Aleks’ horror, the door swung open, revealing a very familiar man, ADAM smeared all over his hands and face. Trevor was barely recognisable.

Aleks took a cautious step back as clutched onto the frame of the door, and stepped inside. James cast a protective arm over Aleks, hand lingering near the gun tucked into the back of his trousers. Trevor looked exhausted, his body slumped and shaking, but his eyes were erratic.

Aleks was terrified of his friend.

After a spell of awful silence, James carefully reached towards the switch to get the bathysphere moving, still placed between Trevor and Aleks. Once the bathysphere submerged, Trevor spoke up.

“I’m so sorry, Aleks,” He said, voice wavering unsteadily, like he was going to cry. “I’m so - so fucking sorry,” He restated, shoulders heaving as if the words were effort.

Aleks gently ushered James out of his way to reach Trevor, who was being surrounded by the turquoise light of the ocean, shrouding his features in a calm light, sharply contrasted by the streaks of red on his features.

“What happened to you?” He asked as softly as possible, although his voice broke considerably in awful efforts to conceal his panic.

Trevor just shook silently.

“Trevor?” James tried too, and he got a response.

“I told the police,” He swallowed, looking up to inhale shakily. “I told them about you two,”

The words took a moment to set in, but when they did, Aleks felt like he was going to be sick. He had been abandoned by his parents, hunted by the police, and nearly killed because Trevor, his closest friend, had willingly told the police about him. Something like rage flickered inside him, but it was smothered by James stepping forwards and gently shoving Trevor to sit down on the neatly cushioned seats lining the bathysphere, and holding a gun to his forehead, pushed against the greasy strands of hair flopped in front of his eyes.

“I know,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowzah, thats a long chapter huh
> 
> i also have a tumblr now! talk to me at @powellio


	11. dream a little dream of me

Aleks lunged.

In some strange manoeuvre, he managed to grab James’ wrist just as his finger began to place pressure on the trigger, throwing his arm up in the air and instead firing into the ceiling of the bathysphere. The noise was deafening, bouncing off the walls and causing Aleks to fall back against the wall, clutching his ears. James hardly reacted at all, and Trevor was glazed-eyed, shaking and curled against the wall.

The bullet must’ve gotten lodged in the roof somewhere, because although there was a sizeable bullet hole, no water threatened to rush through in the good three minutes the passengers spent in silence, staring at the wound. In a frightening finale, the bronze-coloured bullet clinked to the floor, rolling under the seat.

Aleks exhaled in relief, the emotions rushing out of him before swiftly returning as unprecedented rage. He first looked at Trevor, who seemed to have snapped back to reality and was still, hands shaking slightly in his lap as he stared intently at the bullet nudging his scuffed shoes. Then he looked at James, who was leaning against the adjacent wall. He must’ve dropped his gun as it sat on the floor directly in front of him, the red ribbon tied around it torn and ending at Aleks’ feet. They seemed to see it at the same time.

Aleks immediately lunged for it, and he was so close to getting a grip on the weapon before it was snatched out of his hands by James, who stood over Aleks and loaded it with nearly mechanical precision. He finally observed Aleks on the ground, and he seemed almost distressed, eyes conflicted and eyebrows furrowed.

Aleks was sure he was going to shoot him. He was certain.

The bathysphere docked into the abandoned station at Apollo Square, door swinging open.

James knelt down and placed a hand on Aleks’ shoulder, before gripping his upper arm and helping him to his feet. Aleks stumbled slightly, eyes trained on the gun.

“I’m sorry,” James offered softly, before waving a hand at Trevor to come along. He stepped out of the bathysphere first and held out a calloused hand for Aleks, who felt glued to the ground at the door, hardly daring to step out. He glanced to the side, at the button, and realised he could escape. He could press that button, find his parents, and hide. He could. He would.

“Where would you go, Aleksandr?” James asked, voice as soft as before, nudging his hand closer to Aleks. “Come on,”

Aleks glanced back at Trevor, who was on his feet and swaying, hand braced against the wall.

With a sigh, he stepped out of the bathysphere, hand placed in James’.

Suddenly, he was 13 again, and stepping out of a creaky lifeboat, small hand shaking in his mothers’ as she helped him step out of the boat and land on cement stairs, knees trembling in the freezing sea breeze. The  lighthouse was huge, huger than anything he had anything seen, and it seemed to reach into the very clouds. He was led by his father first,  who didn’t look at him, but pushed the grand doors open. The lights switched on one by one, igniting the statue on Ryan staring down on the voyagers, menacing eyes seeming to track their every intention. Бог, he remembers his mother saying as they carefully trod down the steps. 

Aleks’ English wasn’t very good, but he remembers the banner wrapped around Ryan’s copper bust, a red material, traced with golden letters; _No Gods or Kings; Only Man._ They reached the end of the staircase eventually, greeted by a single bathysphere docked in a pool of water. Aleks cried – he sobbed as he stepped inside, knowing he would never know the night sky again, would never feel the all-familiar chill of Russian winter, would never see sunlight. But the bathysphere departed, and as Andrew Ryan’s voice spoke through tinny speakers, he buried his head in his mother’s shoulder, ignored the lurching of his stomach, and waited for the bathysphere to dock into his new home.

But now he could only see James’ eyes, dark and cutting but almost soft and apologetic, mouth quirked in what could nearly be considered a smile.

Trevor followed him, looking wary but considerably more alert. James placed a hand on Trevor’s shoulder and seemed to mumble an apology to him, at the same time ushering him down the narrow street. Aleks clutched James’ hand as if it was a lifeline thrown to a drowning man at sea, and took unnaturally forceful steps down the streets, eyes trained to the horizon ahead. A little sister rushed past, wailing, and his blood ran cold, but no Big Daddy followed.

They eventually reached the warehouse, and James threw out a hand for them to halt before gently prying the door open and peering inside. It was nearly silent in there, but it was definitely occupied, so James widened the door and rushed Trevor and Aleks inside, before walking in himself and closing the door behind them.

The warehouse was much emptier than before. Where two hundred once loudly chattered, danced, and drank, only  fifty remained, wallowing in a grieving silenced. Aleks was relieved to find that their usual table was entirely occupied, despite the growing tension in the room.

Lindsey saw them first and rose immediately, chair scraping behind her. She looked teary, but walked in confident strides towards them, pulling James into a hug first which was reciprocated warmly. She whispered something to him, which he shook his head at, and she nodded in understanding. She stood back and saw Aleks then, eyes welling up as she tugged him into a tight hug, if only for a second.

“Hey, Aleks,” She managed, smiling wide when she pulled back, inspecting his face with faint worry in her eyes. He supposed he must not look great; he was pale, tired, and his hair was still wet, although his clothes had half-dried.

She offered a worried glance to Trevor.

“Think you could run a test on Trevor?” James asked Jakob judiciously, already reading over strewn documents on a table, accompanied by Brett, who was nonchalantly wrapping a fresh bandage over his forearm, which seemed to be covered in some sort of burn.

Jakob sighed, but nodded and walked over to the man, placed a hand on Trevor’s arm, and gently led him to what was once Brett’s office, but now seemed to be a makeshift medical office. Aleks watched the two go in, and glimpsed Jakob knowingly clean the traces of ADAM off of Trevor’s arms. He supposed Jakob was the medic of the team, and must’ve been who bandaged him up after the riots.

“Aleks,” James called, almost unnecessarily loudly, waving a hand to usher him over. Aleks joined the table and tilted his head to peer at the papers spread over the table, among which were IDs, blueprints, posters, and typed documents stamped with ‘confidential’. It seemed mundane and he only skimmed the majority of the papers until he glimpsed a tightly sealed envelope. It had a spot of dried blood on it and was marked with cursive handwriting. He recognised it instantly.

Aleks shifted to reach over and grab it, flipping it in his hands. He was dimly aware of James watching him, and was about to open it when the world suddenly swam,  blurring and saturating rapidly until he was forced to place a bracing hand against the table. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, could hear his name being called, but it sounded like it was underwater, or like he was miles away in the middle of a storm. His vision was hazy when James nudged his face up to stare at him, and he said something unintelligible to his left.

The world swayed into nonexistence.

Aleks woke up in the same place he had all those months ago, on a stuffy cow-print blanket haphazardly strewn across a double mattress. He wrinkled his nose as he woke up, blinking the haze out of his eyes as he slowly became aware of his surroundings. A cold cloth had been placed on his forehead, but now it laid in a crumpled pile on the floorboards. Aleks sat up slowly, elbows shaking as he braced himself against the mattress. He felt gross, skin clammy and stomach lurching with every movement.

He considered getting up and reaching the door, but then the door creaked open slowly, and James carefully stepped inside, a glass of water in his newly blackened hands. He seemed to be relieved that Aleks was awake and almost rushed around the mattress, sitting on the edge and giving the water to Aleks.

“Feelin’ okay?” He asked, crossing his arms and, after a moment of contemplation, shifting to lie down next to Aleks, hand moving to urge him to lie down again after taking a sip of the water. He did so after placing the glass on the ground and turned to look at James.

They laid there for a while, hands eventually becoming entangled on the pillow between them. They laid there for a while, hardly saying anything at all, just being wrapped up in each other’s presence. Aleks knew he slipped in and out of consciousness every so often, but James was always there, mumbling for him to drink some water, or brushing the hair out of his face. It must’ve been in the extremely late hours of the night that James urged him to get up, which he did, begrudgingly, clothes sticking to his skin uncomfortably.

James helped him to his feet and out of the door. The warehouse was nearly empty, but Asher remained, rapidly scrawling on what looked like forms. James bid him a quiet goodbye, and he returned the sentiment, offering Aleks a smile.

They walked through Apollo Square for what seemed like hours, but was more likely about fifteen minutes. James kept to the walls of the streets, but no police passed their route, and so they made it to what could be presumed to be James’ apartment in little to no time.

James’ apartment was on top of a run-down looking bakery, the bread in the window looking dry and doughy, and the sign’s paint flaking ever so slightly. James led him through the bakery, which was curiously enough, still open, a tall blonde girl practically asleep at the counter, mumbling a ‘hello’ as they passed through. The stairs were rickety and unsafe, but they made it upstairs, and suddenly Aleks was standing in James’ apartment.

It was strange – like standing in the childhood bedroom of your idol. It was too mundane for someone so intricately unique and eccentric, yet here he was, standing on dark hardwood with four dark red walls around him and a peeling ceiling above him. James’ apartment was simple; the room they had entered was simple, a dark loveseat face no television, just a coffee table covered in various papers and files, pens strewn haphazardly on the floor. There was also a kitchen, but it was basic, practically just a sink and various cupboards. As they entered, Aleks nearly slipped on a hardback book lying face down on the floor. James apologised hurriedly and picked it up, and it was clearly some sort of philosophy book, which were banned in Rapture. However, James just placed it on the coffee table nonchalantly.

“You live here,” Aleks stated, which, he realised, must’ve sounded rude, but James only laughed lightly.

“Yeah,” He responded, moving to open the door, revealing his bedroom, which contained a double bed and a stool being used as a nightstand, which had a hazardous stack of books balanced upon it. James slowly led him to the bed, and sat him down, which Aleks resisted.

“I don’t – why is everyone treating me like a fuckin’ toddler?” He uttered angrily, but lay down nonetheless. The bed wasn’t overly comfortable, and squeaked over every movement.

“You haven’t eaten for hours, Aleks. You’re sick,” He responded. “And not to mention, in shock. Just sleep,”

And then he stood up, about to leave, but Aleks caught his head and held on tight. James swivelled on his heel and stared at him in a mixture of annoyance and sympathy, and when Aleks showed no signs of letting go, he sighed and laid down next to him amidst the noises of protest from the old bed. He reached a hand behind his head and untied the bun, allowing his hair to fan over the pillow. It was here that James looked like a renaissance painting, sheets strewn over his body and hair haloed around him, soft eyes watching Aleks in a somewhat calculated way despite his gentle demeanour.

Aleks shifted closer, and kissed him.

It was chaste, but James clutched onto Aleks’ upper arm and urged him closer, eyes fluttering closed as he did so. The scene was classical and unprecedented, but Aleks soon found himself with one leg thrown over James’ legs, body curved against him. His hand rested on his chest. After a while, James pulled away from the kiss and just settled on lightly running a hand through Aleks’ hair.

Eventually, Aleks spoke.

“What’s on your hands?” He asked slowly, mid-yawn.

“What?” James asked, before the question seemed to register in his mind. He stopped his movement and held up his hand, inspecting the blackened fingertips. “Oh, uh. I work. Sometimes. It’s not really a big deal, I just work in engineering. Like, I keep Rapture functioning – or I help, or something,”

Aleks huffed out a laugh, and took James’ hand again, intertwining their fingers.

James swallowed, before speaking again. “I love you, you know,”

Something tensed inside Aleks, and he sat up, elbow braced against the mattress. They stared at each other for a long while. Somehow, the words came as a surprise – of course James loved him – but the words seemed so foreign coming from James that Aleks almost thought he had misheard. James soon mimicked his actions, seemingly alarmed by Aleks’ sudden tenseness, until they were both half-sat up and staring at each other in combined bewilderment.

Aleks thought about it for a moment.

“No, you don’t,”

James gaped at him for a moment, seeming to not exactly know what to say. Aleks watched him carefully, eyes almost cold now. Their hands were still intertwined.

“I do,” James tried again, eyebrows furrowed as if trying to decipher the situation.

“Then you’ll leave with me,”

The request was so sudden, it surprised Aleks himself, but the persistence of the statement instilled a sense of determination and anger into him. James blinked rapidly before he retracted his hand hesitantly and sat up properly.

“You… you know I can’t just leave,”

Aleks sat up too, leaning closer to James and lightly placing a hand on his jaw. “Yes, you could. You had your big rebellion, now…” He paused, and let his hand drop. “We need to leave before this city destroys itself,”

“That was the goal of the cause, Aleks, we’re _winning_ ,”

“No, we’re not,”

James stood abruptly, rapidly walking over to a shadowy corner of the room Aleks had neglected to notice. It was a plain side table, a phonograph precariously balanced upon it. With his back to the bed, Aleks had no way of seeing what James was doing, but the record started up with a scratch. Aleks identified it as a slow song, one that seemed fairly recent. It must’ve been smuggled from topside – typical.

James held out a hand for Aleks, which he took, and was instantly guided to his feet. James placed a confident hand on his waist, and Aleks placed his on James’ shoulder, free hands joining together in dance as they swayed on the floorboards. Aleks couldn’t help it – he felt so mad, but as the crooning voice of the record echoed through the room, it seemed to rush away, replaced by a hazy sort of content. He rested his head on James’ shoulders as they rocked from side to side.

“Aleksandr,” James began. “We will get out – I promise – and we’ll go topside and get a house or whatever and we will live so, so happily,” He exhaled shakily, eyes closing. “But I can’t abandon this cause. It’s not over yet,”

Aleks didn’t respond, but he was certain James knew why – his tears had since soaked the shoulder of James’ shirt. He was blubbering like a child, but the tears were uncontrollable, lip trembling. James ushered him off and guided him into a sweet kiss.

The record ended.

They slept for the rest of the night, two bodies wrapped around each other in an unidentifiable mess of limbs. They slept all through the morning, like an old married couple, and it was like they really were topside, just living a normal life.

The illusion was shattered abruptly when Brett burst through the doors, shaking them awake and yelling something about a _fall_ , or about a _distaster_. The words clicked instantaneously in Aleks’ mind. The thought was almost funny – they had _slept_ through such a major event, and it had pounced upon them in the night, like they were prey. But then James was tugging Aleks through the apartment and out of the door, through a suddenly empty bakery, and into the crowded streets of Apollo Square, closely followed by Brett. People were screaming, crying, panicking. It had finally happened.

Rapture had fallen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not super long but i might add to this one - i wrote it when super tired haha  
> hope you enjoy!  
> also, check out my tumblr, @powellio!


	12. god only knows

            “Oh, fuck,” James exclaimed as he burst through the doorway, hair bouncing around it’s shoulders in it’s untied state. He had managed to pull on a pair of trousers and throw on a shirt from off his floor, and Aleks, in his barely awake stupor, had managed to do the same, along with a pair of his own slacks. The shirt was one of James’, a cheap ivory-coloured material that was slightly too big for both of them. James, however, had managed to throw on a brown jacket at the door and that was what he sported as he rushed out onto the streets to join the masses already storming what had to be the bathysphere station. Aleks followed him and sucked in a deep breath when he saw the crowdedness of the street, almost overwhelmed at the suddenness of it all. Brett placed a hand on his back and steered him towards James silently, whipping his head around as if surveying their surroundings.

James had stopped suddenly and turned to look at the pair, eyes widened. Aleks would’ve thought him to seem happy, but he looked almost stressed, hands fluttering at his sides like he hadn’t the faintest clue what to do with them. Instead, he took three long determined strides towards them and clasped one hand on Brett’s bicep, as if to get his attention.

“Where are the others?”  He had to yell over the crowd.

“What? They’re – why?” Brett responded, watching as James seemed to panic slightly, eyes flicking over to Aleks.

“We need to get to those bathyspheres and, uh, shut them down,” He replied helplessly, as if seeming to lose hope for just a second, before regaining it. “They’re going to use them at Olympus, right? And leave us behind,” He justified, and Brett seemed to nod slowly, as if contemplating the statement. Then, he turned on his heel and batted a hand for them to follow before breaking into a steady jog, leaving the two to follow.

Brett yelled over his shoulder as he ran, “We can get through faster by taking a back route, which should pass by the warehouse, if they’re still there,”

Aleks grabbed James’ hand almost by instinct as they followed, and James moved his head to stare at him in panic, face breaking into a somewhat reassuring smile upon seeing the tiredness of Aleks’ eyes and the paleness in his face. However, they made it to the warehouse in the relatively short time of twenty minutes, and they slipped inside a sweaty mess. The warehouse was abandoned, blueprints left and scattered across tables and, horrifically enough, a streak of blood on the adjacent wall. He could feel the others deflate significantly, and they were about to figure out their next plan, when the familiar sound of a gun cocking echoed throughout the warehouse. Their heads swiftly turned to the source of the noise, and out of the shadowy corner came a familiar face.

Lindsey had a rifle raised with steady hands, eyes narrowed. Her white blouse had specks of blood on it. It seemed to take a moment, but as soon as she recognised them, she lowered the gun and exhaled in relief, swiping the back of her wrist against her forehead as she relaxed.

“Nice of you three to join us,” She said with an unusually shaky voice, and almost immediately the door to the backroom swung open and Asher, Jakob, and Trevor stepped out, seeming disorientated but relieved.

“Fuck,” Jakob exhaled.

Not five minutes later, they were seated at their usual table, and Aleks half-expected the usual bickering and joking, but they sat there, silent. James carefully placed his jacket around Aleks’ shoulders. Jakob seemed to make the most noise as he disinfected Trevor’s needle wounds with a wad of cotton and alcohol, eyes focused on the task at hand even as his hand shook. Asher had rosary beads clasped in his hands, which he idly ran his fingers over repeatedly. Lindsey and Brett just stared downwards.

Aleks found James’ hand under the table, and held it tight.

“Alright,” James drawled finally. “It’s fucking chaos out there, right? So, uh, we need to shut those stations down. Somehow,”

“That can only happen if Ryan disables the bathyspheres,” Asher offered.

“You’re telling me,” James pause, leaning back in his chair. “There’s _no_ other way,”

“I mean…” Asher shrugged, intercepted by James standing up.

“Good enough,”

So, they all armed themselves, Aleks choosing out a pistol again. But it wasn’t his, it wasn’t the one draped in red ribbon, and it hadn’t been gifted to him by James, but it was a weapon. He shoved it into his pocket after making sure it was loaded, and cast a quick look to Trevor, who was sitting, near motionless, on the same chair. After a moment of conflict, he approached him. Trevor didn’t respond at first, but after a few seconds, he lifted his gaze to peer at Aleks.

He looked terrible, in all honestly. He looked somewhat frailer, skin pale and clammy, eyes dilated and unfocused. Aleks’ eyebrows furrowed in worry, and he knelt down to be at eyes level with his friend.

“He’s going through withdrawal,” Jakob chimed in from some ways behind him, and when Aleks turned around, he was loading a machine gun calmly. “It’ll be rough, obviously,”

“He’ll be okay, right?”

“I hope so. I’ve never really dealt with ADAM addicts,”

Aleks stopped for a moment.

“Thank you,” He said carefully, rising to his full height.

Jakob snapped his fingers with a smile. “There it is,”

Trevor lowly chuckled from behind them. That was a good sign. Aleks found himself almost sentimental about it all – it was almost as if there was no apocalyptic downfall happening right on their doorstep. But they had to face facts eventually, and so eventually Aleks found himself marching down the street, led by James and Brett. He lingered at the back, hardly noticing a missing member before Asher jogged up to catch up with the group, falling into step with Aleks.

“Oh,” Aleks startled at the sudden presence.

“Sorry,” Asher said quickly, before going back on the statement. “I mean, for everything. I know I wasn’t very, uh, sympathetic on the night of the riots. Kind of let the whole thing get to me. So, I’m sorry,”

The apology was rather sudden.

“Uh, it’s okay. I guess,” He shrugged, focusing on taking even steps. They were approaching the crowds now, although it was heavily reduced since their first sighting. “I know it means a lot to you,”

“Thanks,” He responded lamely.

They were upon the crowd at that point, and it was clear that it was mostly the poorest of the poor that resided in Apollo Square, a few policemen operating the bathyspheres. There was no indication of how many there were left, but Aleks could guess that there would be very few. It was becoming especially violent at the front lines, people verbally abusing the officers and attempting to push past. James turned to look at Aleks and, maintaining eye contact, swiftly raised his hand and fired a single bullet upwards. It must’ve lodged in the thick ceiling of Apollo Square, because all it served was that silence fell across the crowd and they all turned to look at the group, some people nearly fainting in relief at the sight of James, like he was a miracle-maker.

A path was cleared for him immediately, but the noise rose again, this time considerably louder, with people chanting his name. The officers looked visibly disgruntled, but were unarmed, thankfully, and couldn’t exactly leave their stations. Instead, one stalked across the station and picked up the phone resting on the ticket booth, rapidly dialling what could be assumed to be backup. Panic flared inside Aleks.

But, finally, the bathysphere doors opened and immediately people began to herd in. Sobbing children were pushed into the vehicles by reassuring mothers, who hurriedly pressed kisses to their foreheads as they curled up together in the cramped submarines, eyes watering. Those were dispatched rather quickly, but only after a few more children were pushed inside and separated from distraught mothers, one of which Lindsey held in her arms tightly.

There could only be one or two left. As the next bathysphere docked, it was filled with young women, yelled out as a priority by the guards. And so, the bathysphere was filled with strong-faced women, wives huddling together on the floor and one elderly woman calmly seated. Lindsey marched ahead after a soft goodbye, calm brown eyes watering ever so slightly. Before it could dispatch, however, Aleks felt a gloved hand on his upper arm. He raised his gaze to frown at the police officer who had touched him, shaking away his intruding hand.

“Mr. Marchant? Your father requested priority for you in the bathysphere. I must request you get in immediately,” And then the man began shoving at Aleks, forcing him up the steps. Aleks caught James just in time, clutching his hand with horror in his eyes, but James just shook his head.

“Go, Aleks,” He said, just low enough for only Aleks to hear. “I’ll be right behind you,”

The police officer had loosened his grip.

“Fucking liar,” Aleks lurched forward to kiss James, passionately and rough and awful and messy, but it could be their last. James clutched onto Alek’s jacket – _his_ jacket – and kissed back, rougher but so much more desperate. The noise around them seemed to fade, but Aleks could still feel James’ hands on his back and the warmth of their bodies pressed together, and he was taken back to the night they met, to the faint scar of a burn on his forearm, to them spinning in a circle and James’ excited laugh. He thought of sleepless nights between them, of kissing in an elevator and bold glances across rooms, to intertwined fingers and James’ mattress. Aleks didn’t realise he was crying until he opened his eyes and realised that James was crying too, cheeks reddened.

The kiss was interrupted sharply by the officer sharply tugging Aleks away, and he traced James’s arm to the fingertips as he was dragged away.

“I love you,” James breathed.

Aleks didn’t have time to respond, because the officer shoved him, hard, and he landed inside the bathysphere and was instantly held by Lindsey. The officer stepped away from the door, and it was about to swing shut with a mechanical groan. James’ face was visible through the glass, distraught and red, but looking straight at Aleks. Brett seemed upset too, but hid it, turning his face away. Asher refused to look too, but did mouth a soft _goodbye_ to them both. Jakob smiled sadly, busy with comforting an elderly woman. Trevor hardly reacted, but was clearly upset and in worse condition. He raised a single hand and waved as the door croaked shut and the bathysphere began to sink, water bubbling around them before plunging them into the darkness of the ocean. The lights flickered on, the inhabitants of the bathysphere startling.

“Fuck, Lindsey, I can’t just-“ Aleks began, voice thick with tears, but Lindsey just clutched him tighter, staring ahead as they left the station.

“I know,”

The bathysphere sunk further, only a small while to go before they were in open water and headed for the surface. The bathysphere groaned, and Aleks found his hands in the jacket that was just too big for him and far too light to be expensive. He plunged his hands into the soft cotton and found something – a folded piece of paper. He unfolded it tentatively under the watchful eye of Lindsey. It was a poster for the cause. A cartoonish James with a halo of curly hair held a thumbs up in the midst of a crimson background, white lettering above him, reading in steady cursive; ‘I am not a liberator; These people will liberate themselves,’

Aleks sobbed as he knelt on the floor of the bathysphere, Lindsey at his side. He raised a hand to press it into his eyes, hoping to reduce the flow. He could still see

Lindsey gently took the poster from him and stared at it for a moment, mouth quirked downwards and trembling.

It was then that Aleks lunged forwards to tug forward the ‘emergency stop’ button. The bathysphere screeched to a halt amidst cries from the passengers, and the lights flickered once before the bathysphere began it’s ascension. Lindsey dropped the poster in her shock and grabbed his shoulders, eyes wide.

“What are you doing?” She exclaimed, eyes wide.

The bathysphere broke the surface with a _whoosh_ and the door swung open again. They had risen as another bathysphere was loading passengers, and as the door creaked open, Aleks caught sight of James, who hadn’t noticed yet. He was yelling, face still wet with tears, throwing insults at a guard before accepting an infant from a wailing mother and persuading a boarding passenger, a ruddy woman with blonde hair, to take the child on board.

Aleks stepped out of the bathysphere before leaning back inside and pushing the emergency stop button back down, offering the bathysphere a small smile.

“Good luck,”

The bathysphere door began closing, and Aleks could feel the presence of an officer approaching him, before Lindsey lunged forwards and slipped out of the bathysphere just in time, before the door slammed shut and it began to sink again. Aleks was about to say something to her, some sort of apology or thanks, but she simply shoved him aside and, before the incoming officer could say anything, threw back an arm and punched him directly in the face. The hit was more than enough to knock  the man out cold, and the slamming of a body hitting the ground alerted most of the crowd, including Brett, who saw them first.

He grinned, wide, and Lindsey took confident strides forwards to greet Brett with a cocky smile. Aleks followed her, but it was only a few steps before James noticed him, and stopped mid-scream, voice dying out. He tensed, and before Aleks could take another step, shoved past the nearest guard and began running through the station. Aleks could feel his heart pick up and he began to run too. They collided with a cry, James holding onto Aleks and cupping his face as he laughed in relief, Aleks smiling through his tears.

“You’re a fucking idiot, you know that?” He mumbled, pressing soft kisses to the corner of Alek’s mouth, to his temple, to his jaw. “Such a fucking idiot, holy shit,”

“I know,” He replied, just as an officer announced the last bathysphere. “Go, Aleks, fucking go,” He almost pleaded, grabbing his hands, giving him a gentle push. “You don’t fucking belong here, you know? You deserve, like, a good life topside. You could still have that – Aleks, _please,”_

Aleks paused, considering it. All the things he could do. He would move back to Russia, perhaps, own a house by the sea and go dancing with pretty girls on the weekends, perhaps marry one. He would go back to school, and study everything he could. He would work, maybe in a bakery, or in a dingy office somewhere. He would look after his parents. He would have a dog, and a cat, and they’d hate each other but he would love them. He could have children one day, running around their backyard.

Perhaps he could have a good life.

“But it wouldn’t be with you,”

James sighed and shook his head, a grin encompassing his features.

The last bathysphere left in a matter of minutes, filled to the brim with terrified residents. There were still dozens gathered outside the station, though, crying and screaming, but were ignored by the police. After a few minutes of not disporting from outside the station, the inevitable occurred. The officers began firing shots into the crowd at random, until the crowd dispersed into a panic.

The first shot was a shock to everyone. It ricocheted off a metallic sign and hit a young man directly in the throat. He fell to the floor instantly. After that, the shots continued, only faltering after Brett raised his pistol and fired at a police officer, hitting him in the kneecap and causing him to hit the floor. They left rather quickly after that, left with nothing to do but to keep walking and find refuge. It was during this walk that Aleks walked side-by-side with James, fingers intertwined. They walked for what seemed like hours, until the shiny sign of  RYAN AMUSEMENTS greeted them.

Aleks huffed. He had been taken to this place countless times through school trips and by his mother and father, citing the trip as ‘fun’ when it was a very deliberate form of propaganda to convince young children to never leave. The park itself had obviously had it’s power shut; no rides were functioning at all, and it was clearly abandoned.

“What now?” The question came from Jakob, who was lingering back with Asher and Trevor, both helpfully trying to awaken a drowsy Trevor. “I mean, are we just waiting this one out, or…”

“What else can we do? I mean, the city’s basically abandoned at this point, so-“ He stopped himself, and Aleks startled. James slowly held a hand up.

They were just inside the Rapture Memorial Museum, facing down the entrance area. It was nice; a polished desk marked ‘tickets’ faced the group, and beyond that was one of the exhibits, explaining how Rapture was built. It was a group of about ten sculptures of the main buildings of Rapture suspended on wire, which would normally loop and rise and fall to symbolise how many buildings were crafted on the surface and sunk to the sea floor. But with the power cut, they suspended still.

James had stopped at the foot of the grand staircase, one foot atop a step and the other planted firmly on the ground. Aleks stopped and listened for the source of the noise. Funnily enough, he didn’t hear it at first. He heard the light steps of a child, and a small twinkling laugh from just outside. Then he heard a mechanical groan and the _thump_ of the footstep of a Big Daddy.

“Oh shit,” Brett echoed, and Aleks felt his heart still. They seemed stuck in place for a moment, in some place between terrified and almost intrigued. Then there was another step, and the whole room seemed to shake, and that flung them into action, Brett ran first, not risking speech and simply gesturing for the group to follow him through the hall. James, however, had been loading his gun throughout the realisation and, at the second footstep, had dropped the ammo, immediately squatting to try to gather it up. Aleks helped instantly – ammo was precious, and the Big Daddy didn’t seem so close, they could catch up. The danger was worth the ammo. They had nearly gotten all the shells and the groups’ footsteps had nearly dissipated.

The doors thudded open with a slam.

 James and Aleks’ heads both whipped up simultaneously at the noise, eyes wide in shock and sweat already pooling in their palms.

They were too late to follow the group, so in a moment of terror, they acted on instinct and sprinted up the stairs, hearts thumping in their chest. At the foot of the stairs, a bullet rolled across the floor, nosing at the boot of a Big Daddy.

Aleks led James up the stairs, faltering at the top as his mind scrambled for direction. Straight ahead would lead to the El Dorado Lounge, but going right would lead to the Hall of the Future. He panicked, but James set a hand on his elbow, urgency in his eyes but obviously trying to calm Aleks. The Big Daddy took another step. The Little Sister seemed to spot them, gasping in delight. Aleks could hear the pitter-patter of her feet up the stairs.

He ran straight ahead, followed closely by James as they sprinted through countless exhibits, eventually bursting into the El Dorado lounge, a classy place, decorated with fake foliage and cushioned seats, half-full drinks left on the bar. The sound of the Big Daddy going up the stairs was deafening. James led this time, sprinting into the doors to the kitchen and slamming them shut behind him.

“Fuck, what do we do now?” Aleks exclaimed, rushing around a counter and searching for a way out, any way out.

“I mean, it’s not, uh, hostile yet, so we should be fine, right?” James offered.

But that day was not a good day, so as soon as the words left his mouth, the angry roar of the Big Daddy shook the building. There were a million different reasons for the cause – a malfunctioning Big Daddy, external forces triggering it’s defence mechanism, or a splicer hungry for ADAM just got a bit too close to the Little Sister.

“Trevor,” They said simultaneously, just as Aleks spotted a vent, hidden behind a shelf stacked high with ingredients.

“Help me out here,” Aleks rushed over to the shelf and, with help, pushed it over, scattering spices and bags of sugar across the kitchen. The noise was awfully loud, and it was made much worse by the scream of a Little Sister – clearly coming from the lounge a door over. Aleks inhaled a shuddering breath and pried the grate off the vent. The vent was large, clearly for in case of a fire or a flooding, but it was high up. As soon as the grate swung down, dangling from one clasp on the wall, James bent down with his hands clasped to boost Aleks up, which was accepted immediately. Aleks crawled into the vent with relative ease, turning to help James up.

James moved a leg onto the nearest counter to push off of and it worked for the most part, and with Aleks’ help, he was nearly inside the vent when the Little Sister burst through the doors, giggling and smiling with one very large syringe in her tiny hands. James began scrambling immediately as she skipped over and raise one hand wielding the syringe up to his legs – dangerously close, before Aleks could lean over to grab his legs and pull them inside, as well as grab the grate from its place and tug it to cover the opening again, cutting off entry for now.

They took a moment to breath a sigh of relief as they sat against opposite walls, despite the little creature a few feet away and the rapidly approaching Big Daddy. James breathlessly smiled at Aleks, who returned the sentiment before moving to walk in a crouch down the vent, ignoring how the vent shook at every step the Big Daddy took.

Thankfully, the vent seemed to be one route, and if Aleks was any good at mapping, they were headed straight for the welcome area, where they could find the others and get the hell out of there. They walked with care for now, though, out of an urge to preserve energy and the few peaceful moments they had. They walked in silence, only stopping when they found an opening in the wall of the vent; more like a window to a room, and that was where they found the rest of the group. They were crouched down behind a desk, their backs to James and Aleks as they peeked over the desktop. Trevor looked like he had been crying. James looked as if he wanted to cry out, to say anything, but he was interrupted by the creak of the grate door. Aleks’ blood ran cold, and James looked at him in horror.

Aleks started moving again, and it seemed for a second that they had made their way back to the visitor’s centre, but there were two routes this time; one leading directly down, onto the first floor of the entrance hall, where they had come from, or another leading into what looked like the crawlspace above the utility rooms of the museum. James cocked his head, and Aleks weighed it out, trying to ignore the advancing footsteps behind them.

Going straight through to the entrance hall posed the risk of encountering the Big Daddy, which had likely returned to meet it’s Little Sister as she stalked through the vents, but the crawlspace was more likely a dead end. So, it was with a weary sigh that Aleks turned to his left and sat on the ledge between the vent and the crawlspace, dropping down and praying that the ceiling panels were enough to hold them. They were, thankfully, and James followed.

They raced through the crawlspace, wincing when they heard the groan of the Big Daddy who was likely back in the entrance hall, waiting for them. If Aleks really focused, he could see it through the holes in the grate below them, though he chose not to dwell on that for now. They continued through the crawl space, and soon enough a utility ladder came into site, leading into another crawlspace. Just as Aleks set a hand on the ladder, though, the gates beneath them shuddered, and they both looked up to see the Little Sister right there, needle clutched tightly in her hand. She laughed light-heartedly, before taking strangely tactile steps towards them, greying skin looking more grotesque as spots of light refracted off it. Her amber eyes illuminated her features as she stepped closer to the two, and Aleks immediately hoisted a foot onto the ladder and pushed up, hoping to reach the crawlspace.

But James was still on the ground, glaring down the creature with steady eyes, hand outstretched and one leg on a panel, bent as if braced for impact– _was he insane?_ \- but the Little Sister just grinned and laughed.

 “Hurry, Mr B! Angels are waiting for our kisses,” She exclaimed, voice echoing through the crawlspace. The groan of the Big Daddy was enough to spur the Little Sister ahead as she charged for James, needle pointing ahead.

“Fuck off,” James said.

 It was at the moment where the needle was inches away that James lifted his leg and _slammed_ it down onto the tile, forcing it and the Little Sister to fall through.

The title fell to the ground with a loud clatter, followed by the girl, who fell almost silently, whistling through the air until she hit the marble ground with a soft _thump_ , needle skidding across the floor.

Aleks wanted to be sick.

James straightened up and began to climb up the ladder, forcing Aleks to keep moving until he was up on the next level of the crawlspace. He could hear the Big Daddy roar with anguish upon discovery of the body, but couldn’t see it. He had to keep moving – that was until they reached a dead end, the only exit out and onto the concealed scaffolding reserved for employees. It was a dark series of bridges expertly concealed high up and against the dark ceiling intended to assist maintenance work and for VIP visitors to acquire a better view of the exhibit, but for now it would have to do. Aleks dropped down onto the first platform, feeling uneasy at the height, but was shortly followed by James.

“That Little Sister is going to regenerate real soon,” James whispered to him as they trod across the platform. There was a small entrance to another crawlspace right ahead. “Might wanna speed it up so we can get the hell out of here,”

“Okay, okay, just- give me a second-“

The Big Daddy roared again and stomped in anguish, seeming to spot the two upon the bridge. The were frozen in place, staring through the Big Daddy’s helmet, flooded with a luminescent red light. This thing was angry.

At that exact moment, Asher skidded around the corner, closely followed by Lindsey and Jakob; He could only assume that Brett was taking care of Trevor. They gaped at the sight; James and Aleks squatted on a clearly unstable bridge and being stared down by a Big Daddy, which had no turned and was staring at the group from the top of the stairs, seeming conflicted on who to aim for first.

Jakob began pressing ammo into his gun as quietly as possible, sucking in shaky breaths, only halting when Lindsey placed a hand on his arm.

The Big Daddy began to turn its drill, as if winding it up. That thing would kill them instantly.

James faltered, and straightened up, gripping the rail and peering over the edge, rapidly scanning their surroundings. There was nothing, just the cold marble floor and the exhibit hanging from wires. They were out of options. He huffed, and looked back to Aleks, who was already leaning over the rail, foot planted on the first rung of it. He cast him a look of disbelief.

“James, get on the fucking statue,” Aleks deadpanned, before swinging a leg over the rail and perching on the fence. He took a deep breath and, after a quick look to James, leapt onto the tower suspended by wire nearest to him, clutching onto it. He had his eyes squeezed shut, as if he couldn’t bear to look down.

James cast a quick glance to the Big Daddy, which had just finished winding up the drill. It seemed to lunge at him in slow motion, propelling through the air with a rare grace as it spun through the air. James felt the air whip past it’s face as the drill narrowly missed him, instead falling short and collapsing onto the floor of the bridge. The Big Daddy, trying to retrieve it’s weapon, tugged it back towards him even as it got stuck on the rail. With one tug, the wires suspending one side of the bridge collapsed, causing it to flip upwards like a sinking ship and leaving James dangling from the rail, helplessly grasping at the nearest statue, a tower similar to the one Alek’s had found himself upon. It was just below him but he would have to take the biggest trust fall of his life to get on.

The Big Daddy was winding up its drill again. James was struggling to continue holding on. So, with a curse and with his eyes firmly shut, he swung his legs and propelled himself onto the structure, barely managing to grab on and stay off the ground. He sighed in relief, not daring to look down or at the Big Daddy. Instead, he located the group on the ground, of which had been joined by Brett and Trevor, who were both looking horrified. Trevor seemed better, somehow.

The Big Daddy seemed to become impatient and with one fluid leap, landed on the floor beneath Aleks and James with a deafening impact. Aleks was almost certain the floor had shattered beneath that mass. Brett huffed, loading his gun with an unsettling precision, but before even aiming, he raised his other hand towards the Big Daddy, and instant flames engulfed the Big Daddy, causing it to stall for a short while.

It was here that Brett barked some sort of order to Jakob, who rushed away, nearly tripping over his own feet as he swerved the corner, leaving Aleks and James suspended on the ceiling, fearing for their lives.

“Fuckfuckfuckfuck…” Jakob uttered as he sprinted through the museum, pistol feeling loose in his clammy hand. He could do this; he had one job – find the generator, get the power running. That way, the structure would move low enough for Aleks and James to get off safely. It made sense, but he didn’t want to do it. Nevertheless, he raced through the rooms until he reached what could only be presumed to be the utility room.

It was a crowded mess in there, but eventually he managed to find the generator, a large piece of machinery hoisted in the corner of the room. There _had_ to be a lever or switch, and of course there was, on the very side of it, tucked away. Jakob inhaled nervously before reaching over and pulling it hard until it budged.

Nothing happened for a moment. But then the lights began flickering on one by one, and the museum was engulfed in light, and more importantly in movement.

Jakob raced back, heart pounding, hands clean of the machine gun he forgot in the utility room.

The exhibit was moving again, thankfully, and Aleks and James had no choice but to pray and hold on as the newly un-burning Big Daddy tirelessly attempted to kill them. Brett and Lindsey were shooting at it now, effortlessly reloading again and again, but to little to no avail. Brett used _Incinerate!_ again on the Big Daddy, and although it did burst into flames, it was still strong.

But it did stall time.

The whole group seemed to startle as the automated audio system of the museum kicked in, of course beginning with Rapture’s anthem as the recorded orchestra rose to full volume.

_“Rise, Rapture, Rise. We turn our hope up to the skies,”_

Aleks looked up at the wire suspensions bolted into the ceiling, which were barely holding the exhibit and Aleks, only worsened by the constant movement of the display. James seemed to be having the same issue as he moved further down the structure, looking rather sickened at the repetitive movement.

_“O Rise, Rapture, Rise! To help us crush the parasites – despised,”_

Lindsey stared up at the two with worry in her eyes as she reloaded her gun, soon continuing the attack along with Brett, who had hardly stopped shooting. They dispersed when the Big Daddy charged towards them, instead it hit a wall, although it didn’t deter it. Asher had rushed to the Little Sister’s side and was anxiously trying to gift her a small red vial of liquid, all whilst avoiding the Big Daddy’s wrath. Jakob was suddenly without a weapon and was instead heaving Trevor to his feet in preparation for them to escape, slinging one of his arms over his shoulder.

The music slowed and whirred to a stop suddenly, much to everyone’s relief.

James exhaled, saw his opportunity, and jumped.

It was quite a far jump; enough to knock the breath out of James as he struggled to his feet, disorientated. The sight of the Big Daddy, however, was enough to make him limp towards Lindsey, who was shooting rapidly. Aleks still clung onto the structure.

Aleks’ wires broke very suddenly, and not even at the lowest point of the structure. He fell to the ground, hard, gasping for breath for a few moments and clutching his side, wincing. He sat up and crawled over, though, just as Lindsey was reloading. Aleks stood shakily, clutching onto the wall and, in a overly disorientated state, tugged the loaded pistol from his pocket, turned the safety off, and pointed it directly at the Big Daddy’s helmet.

He fired.

The bullet cut through the air and hit the Big Daddy directly in the helmet, ricocheting off somewhere but managing to crack the helmet, which was enough to bring the Big Daddy to fall, slumped in a mechanical mess. Aleks sighed in relief and dropped the gun, watching it clatter to the ground. The whole group seemed to need to breathe. Asher stood up from where he had been and sighed slowly, nodding towards the rest of the group strangely, only making sense when a young girl – a _normal_ girl trod around the corner, seeming alarmed. He had saved her.

Aleks watched the kid with unease as she curtsied to them and proceeded to sprint away into the museum, bare feet hitting the carpet repeatedly.

“She going to be okay?” James asked slowly, breath heaving.

“Yeah, I’m not,” Brett chimed in, and everyone turned to him idly.

Brett had leant against the wall with one hand pressed tightly to his shirt but the crimson was clear as it bled through the white shirt. He had his eyes closed and was slowly sinking to the floor, trying not to show too much struggle. Aleks had killed him.

“Oh, fuck,” Lindsey knelt down next to him, prodding at the wound despite Brett’s mumbles of protest. The groan of a Big Daddy came from somewhere in the distance.

“You all need to leave,” Brett said, voice wobbling unevenly.

“Bullshit,” James retorted, leaning down to inspect the wound – it didn’t look good. The bullet had ricocheted in several small pieces, creating about six different entry wounds on Brett’s abdomen. Aleks couldn’t help the swell of guilt he felt, watching this man pale.

“Go, you stubborn fucks. I’m serious,” Brett shook his head. “Finish the cause,”

Aleks knelt next to him. “Brett, I am so-“ He paused, ducking his head as his eyes began to water. “So fuckin’ sorry. For everything,”

“Hey, Aleks. You’re a good kid,” He said simply, shaking his head.

Lindsey was crying too now, but she was smiling too, even though it seemed to falter. She didn’t say anything, but they shared a look that was more than enough.

Asher crouched next to Brett and laughed – actually laughed, at something Brett said, like he wasn’t a dying man.

Jakob shook his hand, which became a hug.

Trevor looked awful again, face reddened with tears as he weakly replied, “Sorry, man,”

Brett chuckled, even though it caused him to cough up blood, splattering his chin with it.

The Big Daddy was getting closer.

“Go, you fucks,” Brett said cheerfully, rolling his eyes in a mockery. “And James,”

James looked up.

“Don’t do anything stupid,”

James laughed, and after a moments hesitation, they began to depart, pushing their ways through the doors. They left Brett there, bleeding out, shoved against the wall in some awkward sitting position, gun loosely held in his hand as the stomping of the Big Daddy neared.

They walked in silence, James slightly ahead.

Posters of James’ smiling face adorned an entire wall they strolled past, the bright yellows and white block lettering smeared with the sharp rouge of fresh blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha i wrote this in one night so eugh


	13. la vie en rose

“James,” Aleks jogged to catch up with the man, who had been stalking ahead of the group for the past hour or so. They were currently in Fort Frolic, and Aleks had no  idea where their intended destination was, but he had the slightest idea that it was back to Olympus Heights.

James didn’t stop walking, but Aleks managed to catch up, grabbing his arm, slowing him to a halt. He loosened the grip on James’ arm after a moment of slight hesitation, stepping back.

“Are you… okay?” It was a foolish question, and he was sure everybody else knew it. James tensed and turned again, beginning to walk, but at least Aleks could keep up with him now.

“I’m not okay, no,” he responded. “My fuckin’-“ He stopped himself then, fists clenching. “My fuckin’ best friend is dead.”

Aleks was at loss for what to say. As a child, he had always been taught the default responses; _I’m sorry for your loss_ , _my deepest condolences, peace and be will,_ the list went on and on. But now he was faced with the death of a friend, _his_ friend, who had died at his goddamn hand. This wasn’t a death from old age, or an accident, or an illness. This was a stone-cold murder, and he had been behind the trigger. The very thought made him sick. He wondered if Brett was still alive, still bleeding out on the cool marble, or if that Big Daddy had gotten to him before the blood loss.

He could picture him now, blood seeping from a wound he refused to look at, not quite dead but not quite alive. A Schrödinger’s cat, so to speak.

“I’m really sorry,” He decided on lamely. “I fucked up.”

“No shit,” James retorted, but after a moment, he tentatively took Aleks’ hand in his, running his thumb over his knuckles, in his own way of saying _sorry_. Then he stopped suddenly, head turned to the side. “Hey, look.”

He was looking at the bar Aleks and James had visited the last time they visited Fort Frolic. It didn’t look good. The front window had a huge crack in it, caused from the inside, it seemed, and the interior was thoroughly wrecked. Chairs had been tipped and flung across rooms, and so had various tables. Remains of glasses and bottles laid on the carpeted floor. It almost saddened Aleks, but he just tilted his head at the sight, mouth sort of quirking into a smile.

“Looks like shit,” He commented, spurring a soft laugh from James.

“It was always shit, you were just too up your own ass to notice.” James retorted - that startled a laugh from Aleks who then pushed James slightly, a grin dancing across his features. James swooped down to pick up a piece of rubble and flung it at the window, watching as the glass shattered. Aleks placed a light hand on his back, eyes tracking the small fragments of glass as they skidded across the floor. They stood still for a moment until James turned his head, and Aleks could see real sadness in his face. He leant in to press a soft kiss to the corner of James’ mouth, hand moving to rest on the back on his neck.

The group finally caught up then, and Trevor was mostly awake now, the haziness in his eyes almost completely cleared. He still looked rough, though. But Lindsey walked ahead, eyes red with past tears, and gestured loosely to Trevor.

“He knows where to go. Says there’s some emergency bathyspheres where you two used to work?” She shrugged.

Aleks flinched at the thought – Trevor was correct; the building did have two emergency dispatch bathyspheres, but it would be a risk to even go to them. They could’ve already been used, malfunctioned, or may’ve been put on lockdown by Andrew Ryan. But it was an opportunity.

Aleks nodded in confirmation when James raised an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, on the third floor, I think. Two – maybe three - of ‘em.”

James shrugged, looking at Lindsey now.

Lindsey just smiled half-heartedly, and that was all the input James needed before he was walking again, hands buried in his pockets. It seemed normal for a moment. James and Aleks walked in near silence for a while, but Asher, Trevor, and Jakob bickered behind them, laughing at stupid jokes whilst Lindsey huffed with hardly concealed laughter, all whilst responding to their jokes with ridiculous comments. After a while, however, James joined in the conversation, followed by Aleks, and soon they were all laughing so hard they were in tears. They were halfway through a tunnel when Lindsey suddenly hushed their laughter, slowing their walking and loading her gun. She checked it was loaded before turning the safety off with a small click, eyes scanning the horizon. It seemed empty, but then a screech sounded out, echoing off the walls of the tunnel and seemingly nearing them.

James withdrew his gun too, now on high alert. They both turned in a circle, looking at both directions of the tunnel. Aleks watched them with slight panic rushing through him – the last thing they all needed was more danger. Jakob edged closer and grabbed his upper arm, alerting him to the small red petal in his left hand. He first tried to identify the flower it was from – a rose, perhaps – but then another one fell at Aleks’ feet, followed by one landing on his shoulder. Jakob stared at him with wide eyes, and Aleks wouldn’t - couldn’t look up, so he batted at James’ shoulder until he turned, and with a shaky hand, pointed directly upwards. James seemed to gather the memo quickly when a petal fell onto his shoe. Lindsey seemed to already know what was happening.

Aleks made the mistake of looking up. The _thing_ was perched on the ceiling of the tunnel, hooked hands wedged beneath the aluminium frame of the glass. It was just fucking staring at them through one of Cohen’s rabbit masks, eyes glazed over. The mask was coated in blood. The splicer was probably once well-dressed, in a now dirtied and ripped satin pink dress. Now, it snarled at them, and in one quick motion, lunged.

It landed on Jakob, to everyone’s horror, and immediately tried to reach his throat with it’s hooks, snarling and screaming like a feral dog. Jakob was screaming, arms up at his face to protect himself as much as possible. Aleks instantly dove to Jakob to shove the thing off, leg swinging back to kick the thing in it’s side, hard enough that it lost it’s balance momentarily. James fired the gun instinctively, and it lodged in the splicer’s shoulder, but it wasn’t enough to  deter it yet. It kept scratching at Jakob until it seemed to get bored, screeched again and pushed up into a jump to perch back on the framework of the ceiling, scuttering around for a moment before landing back on the ground almost effortlessly.

Aleks could really see it now – all of it’s grotesque features in full glory. The splicer had greying skin and splotches of blood scattered over it’s frame. It was wearing what may’ve once been a deep red dress, complete with a petticoat and cream button detailing. It was skinny, bones poking out of it’s skin intrusively as it creeped around, like a spider, head twitching as it surveyed it’s surroundings.

It stopped and shrieked at him, blood oozing from its shoulder wound. It’s teeth were almost sharp, almost deadly, almost human when it roared at him, spit flicking out onto him. He could faintly hear James make a soft ‘ew’ noise. Aleks stumbled back slightly, watching as it snarled and growled in rapid repetition.

They practically had the thing surrounded, and it was quick, stalking around like an animal. But they all seemed to refuse to pull the trigger. It could’ve been sheer curiosity, or terror, or even just reluctance to kill something so unbearably human – ironic, considering the events of the past few weeks – but they just stood by, like they were waiting for it to perish from natural causes. Like they were waiting to die themselves. Asher was the one to pull the trigger, a quick shot directly in between its eyes. It slumped to the floor, dead. Strange, it seemed vaguely more docile than Aleks would have expected - perhaps it was slightly less spliced than assumed. More human. But they left its body there on the ground, twitching ever so slightly, and continued on their way. Aleks fell back purposely, falling into step with Jakob.

They had finally exited the tunnel, entering Olympus Heights. It wasn’t the one Aleks knew although he had only been gone for perhaps two days; it was somehow worse. For one, it was deserted. Not one person was in sight. A splicer sprinted past an opening to a store, but didn’t bother them. A corpse was slumped against a newspaper stand. Aleks thought of Brett, and looked away.

Jakob seemed to be as discomforted as him, inhaling ragged breaths and only slightly dragging his feet along the tile. He was staring straight ahead, at nothing in particular.

“You okay?” He asked softly, focusing on the tiles as they passed beneath his feet.

“What? Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah,” Jakob said in response. Aleks could see the state of his arms as they swung by his side, and it wasn’t bad – a few miniscule cuts across his forearm – but it didn’t look the best. “Just scared the shit out of me,” he laughed lightly, turning his head away. He had blood stains on the front of his sweater vest.

“It seemed like… less violent. Feral, I mean,” Aleks commented softly, focusing on a store front as they passed by. It was a florists, one Aleks had been in exactly once, buying flowers for his mother’s birthday. That thought made his heart ache. He almost stopped, peering at the flowers outside the store, already dead in their bouquets, brown petals peeling off onto the floor.

“That’s good, right?” Jakob seemed unsure.

“I don’t know.”

Aleks fell back again, this time greeted by Trevor and Asher, who were walking together and talking quietly. He felt almost intrusive when he joined them.

“Hey, Aleks,” Trevor said first, unusually cheerful. “Check out Asher’s thing.”

Asher’s ‘thing’ was the crimson vial he had used to aid the Little Sister, what had made her become nearly human again. It was in a medicinal-looking glass beaker, clasped with a decorative lid. Asher held it in his hand, outstretched to Aleks, and Aleks took it, turning it over in his hands.

“What is it?” Aleks asked, tapping the lid absently.

“I pickpocketed it off some woman a few weeks ago. Stole it right out of her coat. I had no idea what it was until my neighbour – a nurse, works with Tenenbaum – said it was what they used to heal the Little Sisters in extreme circumstances,” Aleks passed it back to Asher, who dropped it into his jacket pocket. “Guess it came in handy.”

 “Guess so.”

Aleks pursed his lips and quietly added, “Think you could use it on-“

Asher shook his head swiftly, and Trevor seemed to gather that this was a more private thing. He stalled slightly awkwardly and caught up to Jakob, who greeted him with a smile.

“I wouldn’t be able to find her,” He said quietly, and Aleks felt a spur of guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” he responded and shot him a quick, sad smile. “I just… I miss her, you know?”

Aleks didn’t know. Now that he thought about it, he had hardly had a family. His mother was loving but refused to understand or empathise that Aleks was different, deviant even. His father was worse – Aleks doubted he would ever meet a colder man. He was an only child. Trevor, Joe and Anna were the closest people he know to be a family, and two were gone. Dead, maybe. Missing. He wondered if they missed him too.

He tried to think about Joe and Anna topside. What they would do and who they would be. Joe would go back to school, he thought, receive a fancy degree in some expert field and go on to make more money that he and Anna combined. Anna was smart beyond her years. He had no idea what she would do. Perhaps she would go back to school too, maybe learn how to work with those computers that they had been developing both Topside and in Rapture. He thinks she’d be good at that. But regardless of jobs, Aleks hoped they would be happy. That they would move on.

Lindsey turned, and waved a hand at Aleks. He approached, suddenly torn out of idle thought, and walked with her. She looked at him with this funny expression.

“You alright?” She asked, a small smile across her features.

“Uh, yeah. I think,” Aleks managed. He didn’t feel great, actually.

James suddenly stopped ahead. The rest of the group looked up, practically praying that there was no further danger. Aleks didn’t think he could handle another attack.

But fortune didn’t favour the brave, apparently, because marching towards them was three policemen. They didn’t look regular rank – they were much more padded in armour, and they were swinging these huge guns by their chest, clutched in two gloved hands. They were much more sinister - and they were headed right towards them. James raised a single hand, and they all halted. Lindsey was already fiddling with her gun, but not aiming or even checking it was loaded.

“Wilson,” One of the officers called, and James seemed taken aback. Of course, very few knew his name, so the fact that the police, nonetheless, knew such information was a shock to all of them. “And the rest; put down your weapons. This is the end of the line.”

He was right. There was nowhere they could go from here. Aleks felt his throat clench up with fear.

James seemed to hesitate before turning his head slightly and nodding. Aleks withdrew his pistol from his pocket and set it on the floor, followed by Asher and Lindsey.  Trevor and Jakob apparently weren’t armed. James crouched to place his gun on the tiles, before straightening and kicking it out to them, it skittering across the floor and stopping just short of the closest policeman’s feet.

“Good – glad we could cooperate. You have what we’re looking for, I presume.”

James tensed, and everyone in the group seemed to shoot him a stare. He slowly reached into his pocket and from it, raised a cream envelope. It was slightly splattered with blood, but the writing was still there. The envelope was unsealed, however. Aleks frowned. It was the one he had tried and failed to deliver on the day of the kidnapping. He could remember the way Anna smiled as she passed it over the counter, and how rough the carpet was when he fell to it, Lindsey’s gun to his head.

James held it out, but didn’t look behind him. Refused to, it seemed. One of the policemen was given the go ahead to receive the envelope, taking slow and sure steps towards the group, boots thumping on the floor. He snatched the envelope from James and flipped it over.

“You’ve read it.” He spoke in a sneer, tucking the envelope into his jacket pocket and sealing it with a button.

“Yes,” James confirmed, voice tight. “Many times.”

The officer was looking past him now, at the group. His eyes scanned past them, seeming to stall on Aleks – a familiar face, perhaps.

“So you know.”

“Yes.”

The officer huffed and straightened up, fixing his jacket before turning on his heel. He marched back towards the others, and they seemed to engage in a serious conversation. James looked behind him then and offered them an unsure smile. His hands were shaking.

“Wilson!” Yelled the police officer. They weren’t that far away; yelling was pointless, but it made James startle and he supposed that was the point. “Due to the unfortunate circumstances of you reading a _confidential_ document, you are now involved. You understand?”

James stiffened, and nodded slowly.

“And in these dire circumstances, we are struggling to carry out _these-“_ He held up the envelope. “Instructions,”

“Okay…” James softly said, voice verging on confusion.

“So we wish to offer you a deal. A bargain, so to speak.”

Lindsey glanced down at her gun.

The area was engulfed in silence for a moment, before James rocked back on his heels, placing both hands behind his back and sighing.

“Go on, then,” He said impatiently, although Aleks could practically feel the fear radiating off him.

“We want one of you to help us carry out these instructions, administered by Mr. Ryan himself. If you agree and surrender one, we will let you go. If not, we will be forced to kill you all.”

The words barely registered in Aleks’ mind at first, but when they did, the statement was revealed in it’s true horror. And he could see that these officers meant it; they were all hard stares and loaded guns. Aleks felt his throat close up in terror. He clenched and unclenched his fists slowly, slowly raising his head to look at James’ back. He sighed.

“Give us a second,” He muttered shortly, and turned on his heel, but the action was interrupted by the presumable leader of the officers calling out.

“You don’t get to choose,” He said quickly, and that made James stop. He turned again to face the officers, and took a careful step forwards, eyes darting back and forth in panic, before he lowered his shoulders in a slump and took three steps towards them. Of course they wanted James; he was the one who had started all of this. But then the officer continued. “You’ve read these instructions – you know that the boys at the Proving Grounds had a particular person in mind. You know this, Wilson.”

James stepped back, more out of instinct. But then there were four officers approaching them, guns ready to shoot, and the whole group was still.

“James? What the fuck was in that envelope?” Asher asked uneasily, watching the officers as they approached.

James didn’t respond.

The officers were upon them now. They pushed past James first, and Aleks didn’t register the hand on his shoulder until it _shoved_ him forwards, causing him to trip on the floor and practically fall into James, who had been standing like a statue for the past minute. Aleks had managed to grip onto the front of James’ shirt, and he gradually raised his gaze to look at James’ terrified eyes, but the man was still, hands useless at his sides. Aleks made a sort of breathy gasping noise, struggling for words, for a _goodbye_ , but then he was being dragged away by both arms, nearing the officers.

He cast a look over his shoulder.

Lindsey looked stunned, auburn hair falling in front of her face and her hands, tightly clenched, shook at her sides. He could see the tears pooling in her eyes.

Trevor looked upset too, but he didn’t act, only stared at the ground, motionless.

Jakob turned away, arms crossed over his chest.

Asher looked almost angry, but not at Aleks, or at the police officers, at James.

Aleks felt the cold steel of a gun on his head. It was a familiar feeling, funnily enough. One he associated with the cool blue of the outside ocean, with broken glass in his hands, with the shocking red of fabric. With James, and his hands, and his eyes, and his stupid fucking bun. James.

But this man wasn’t James. The officer with the gun to his head was snarling like a dog, deep wrinkles engraved in his grotesque face. Aleks glared right back.

The man withdrew his gun once he seemed sure Aleks wouldn’t try to kill him, but as soon as the weapon was removed, Aleks lurched forwards with the full intention of headbutting this man into unconsciousness. However, the hands on his arms held him back, tight, and he managed to get a much less effective hit. The man grimaced at the impact, one hand clasped to his head. Lindsey yelled somewhere behind him.

“Not going to cooperate, hm? Don’t know what I expected from a Marchant,” The man twirled the gun in his hand deliberately, frowning at Aleks, whose head was pounding with the impact. Then, the gun was brought back, swung, and the cold metal hit Aleks directly in the temple. He was unconscious before he registered the pain, slumped over like a doll, and dragged away like nothing, headed straight for the Proving Grounds.

The leader stayed behind however, face seemingly stuck in a constant glare.

James was slumped over, hands hiding his face as his hair flopped over his features. His form was shaking, but not with fear, but with utter anguish. His conspirators, his _friends_ , stood by, eyes straight ahead, stunned.

The officer scoffed.

“How the mighty fall, Wilson.”

He yelled, before turning and strolling after his team, and the man they had just murdered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew what a short chapter! sorry! :o


	14. i'll be seeing you

“Oh my God,” Lindsey whispered as Aleks and the hoard of police officers alongside him disappeared around the corner. “ _Oh my God,”_

Asher was the first to move, scooping up his gun and taking confident strides towards James and, for a moment Lindsey thought he was going to shoot him, but he just pushed him, hard. James stumbled back, eyes frantic and hands brought up in defence. Asher kicked James’ gun away, and Lindsey watched it slide across the floor, skittering to a stop by a long-dead flowerbed.

“James, what the fuck?” Asher yelled, hands flying up and falling in angry defeat as he seemed to struggle for ways to articulate his anger. “You just let him go?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” James said in a soft, almost whiny voice. Lindsey almost couldn’t believe her eyes – she had seen James distraught only a few times, but this was on an entire other level. The man was shaking as a shell of his former self.

Asher scoffed at the response, and this time he actually raised his gun, pressing it against James’ temple. There was no real intention to shoot – everyone knew that. But the threat was there, and it made them all flinch, especially when Asher continued arguing. “You – you read those fucking _instructions_ , or whatever, and you led him to it. You led Aleks to his death, you bastard.”

“That’s enough.” Lindsey said, the command almost under her breath as she picked up her own gun, watching the confrontation warily.

James seemed to finally snap back into reality.

“He killed Brett, have you forgotten?” James snapped back, pushing Asher despite the underlying danger of the gun at his head. “And what, you think I wanted this to happen? What the fuck – what kind of person do you take me for?”

“I don’t know, all I know is that Aleks is a dead man walking, and it’s all your fault!”

The group was engulfed in silence then, but Asher turned the safety on his gun back on and slipped it into his pocket quietly, eyes cast to James in disappointed silence.

“Can we just calm down for a moment?” Lindsey said quietly, straightening up and approaching James. She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder. “James, what’s going to happen to Aleks?”

“I don’t know,” and then, to everyone’s disbelieving stare, “I don’t. The letter was all marked up – impossible to read. But I know that he is, and I know that he will live. They need him, and only him, for this.”

“Why him?” Trevor spoke up from the back.

“There was a consent form in there signed by his own parents. Guess they volunteered him.”

The group fell into silence again, and James set his shoulders back, huffing as he tilted his head up.

“We need to go. That bathysphere could be gone already.”

Everyone seemed to startle, but James had already began walking, head ducked as he trekked down the streets in the opposite direction to Aleks. The group followed him out of lack of choice, Jakob moving to grab James’ gun on the way and to shove it into his pocket.

They walked for ages, longer than Lindsey could determine, but it felt like hours and hours. They also walked in silence, only broken by Trevor’s occasional directions. Somehow, it was excruciating. They all knew Aleks was somewhere, suffering at the hands of the very power they fought, and they had all betrayed him. All of them. The winding streets just seemed that much longer with that awful knowledge.

After a few hours, Jakob stopped.

His eyes were cast to the decaying floor, and remained that way even when the group noticed his absence a few metres ahead and paused to inspect what he was so fixated on. James, much to his hesitation, marched back and stopped in front of Jakob, slowly lowering his head to identify the point of interest.

It was an ADAM slug.

They were ugly things, but were rarely seen, if only on the seabed or in labs. They were about the size of a hand, with brownish-blackish skin and luminescent red spots on his bag. It squelched around on the floor, tiny teeth clacking as it grappled for life. It was grotesque. James turned his head away, refusing to look at the creature. It was obviously malformed, possibly on the verge of death, as presumed from it’s slightly dimmer red spots and mutilated form. It had been used, so to speak. ADAM slugs had one use in Rapture – they produced ADAM, and so were implanted into the Little Sisters as a method for mass production and prolonged maintenance of the slug’s life. To see one alive was rare.

It was then that James cast his gaze away and noticed a familiar lock of platinum hair only a few metres away. He knew Jakob had seen it.

“James,” Jakob uttered, finally looking away from the slug. “What are they gonna do to Aleks in there?”

James found himself unable to answer.

Aleks was the same.

He had been walking for hours – well, walking was one word for being dragged along by two pairs of hands, head forcibly tilted down and eyes staring at the floor and his feet as he tripped over them repetitively. It was fine – he didn’t need to see where they were going. He was sure it was horrifying beyond his wildest dreams. All he could see, though, was James’ glassy eyed stare as he let Aleks be pulled away, not raising so much as a finger to help him. That was not the James he knew.

But here he was, being tugged along by a group of officers to his presumable death.

He had woken up about half an hour after being knocked unconscious, and had been dragged along for a while until he found it in himself to half-pick his feet up as they trod down the street. They stopped once, and only once. That was when Aleks saw his chance. The street they were on was narrow, a resident street, tall houses surrounding them. He raised his head slowly to inspect the officers. It seemed half had disbanded a ways ago, for whatever reason, but the leader was still with them, barking orders at another whilst clutching a small glass vessel. Aleks felt the hands on his arms loosen. It was an opportunity. To do what, he wasn’t sure, but before he could change his mind, he lurched forwards, breaking from the grip that held him still and running straight into the leader.

It wasn’t very effective. He was caught before he could even reach the man, but it seemed to startle him enough that he dropped the glass. It shattered immediately, glass skittering across the floor, accompanied by a thump. Aleks was tugged back quickly, but the commanding officer just sneered at him, muttering a demand to the detaining officers.

Aleks couldn’t quite see what had fallen out of the glass as it had shattered but he doubted it was alive. That fall was enough to kill anything that small.

The thought was interrupted by the officer’s strides towards him. Aleks grimaced.

“You just wasted a valuable specimen – one that will save Rapture. Did you know?” It wasn’t exactly rhetoric, and Aleks wanted to respond, wanted to yell and scream and cry but then there was a blade at his head.

He knew it was a knife – a hunting one that they sold as a novelty item in some of the nicer gift shops around Rapture. He remembered receiving one from his father on his birthday, a rare gift that his mother tutted at. He kept it in his drawer, alongside pairs of socks and secret snacks, tucked away just out of sight. Yes, the knife was familiar.

The knife pressed further, until Aleks shot out a quiet _no_ , and still it pushed further.

“Do not interfere with this. This is not your narrative anymore, son.” The officer hissed, and the blade whistled through the air in a short burst and cut through something and for a chilling, awful moment, Aleks was sure that he had a knife in his skull, but the tickling of hair on his face reassure him otherwise. He watched as bleached hair fluttered to the floor in a sad little clump.

He stared at it until they shoved him again, and then they continued walking.

Aleks huffed and kept walking, properly this time, pushing his knees up and stepping down despite his tired muscles’ protests. He needed to keep going. He couldn’t give up.

He idly wondered if James was going to get him, but the thought was diminished when Brett entered his mind. God, he could still see his quietly stunned face as blood oozed from the wound, soaking his shirt. He could hear the groan of the Big Daddy as it lay, dead, on the floor. He could remember Brett’s tired eyes as he laid there, waiting for death.

He had killed Brett.

Granted, he didn’t know the man _that_ well. But he had known him. He had known Brett to be stern in ordinary circumstances, but he had laughed and jeered with them over glasses of beer and joyous music as they talked excitedly at a table. He had known him to be clever and direct in plans, and he had been so dedicated from the beginning. He had been killed by a man who had hardly done anything for the cause he had fought so hard for.

The thought sickened Aleks.

His steps had faltered and he was trailing again, only dragged along by the officers tugging him along, causing his arms to ache horribly. He lifted his head slowly in some weak attempt to see where they were going, almost startling as Andrew Ryan’s black-and-white face greeted him from behind the thick glass of the electrics store he frequently passed on his way to work. The man was delivering some sort of warning message. Aleks idly wondered whether he was still in Rapture, or if he had been the first to leave.

But then he was being shoved through a set of doors, and he fell, landing harshly on the a carpeted ground that was all too familiar. For a moment, he wondered why they had neglected to go to the Proving Grounds as promised, but it was disregarded when he took in that the floor was red and gold, and it grazed his palms. He was back at work, and it seemed he was as late as ever.

The office was in ruins.

The mahogany desk had been overthrown by numerous papers and stationary, as well as empty syringes and splashes of unidentifiable substances. The wallpaper was torn and shredded, some trailing onto the dirty carpet. Chairs had been tossed across the room as wreckage. A corpse was slumped over a filing cabinet. Aleks was forced to stand and to walk by demanding hands, and he sharply inhaled as he trod over a small bloodstain on the carpet in the very spot where he had been kidnapped all those months ago. He was pushed into the elevator and surrounded by the officers where he caught his reflection in the mirrored walls just as the doors slid shut.

He was a stranger to himself.

His eyes were glossy and distant as if he hadn’t seen anything for years. His skin was pale, paler than usual, eye bags that much more visible. A smudge of dried blood was encrusted on his chin. Not his – Brett’s. His hair was dishevelled, brown roots seeming to finally take hold of the artificial blonde. The locks stuck to his head, sticking up awkwardly where a chunk had been cut off only moments prior. His clothes were also speckled with blood, but were in okay condition, considering his state.

The elevator cheerfully dinged as the doors slid open onto a floor that was incredibly pristine. It was the floor he worked on. They forced him to walk past where he and Trevor would sign in with their turquoise cards, stamping them with a mechanical machine. He could see his card in it’s usual place on the wall.

But then he was being pushed _again_ , right into some room he had never been in, only because it seemed just like another office. This was not the case. As soon as he entered, the fairly constant chatter in the room fell into silence. Aleks raised his head, but was just greeted with bright lighting from poised spotlights, and he squinted trying to make out his surroundings. From what he could tell, the room they were in was fairly large, more of a hall than anything. It was tall too, with high ceilings that held windows observable from the floor above them. He was shoved into the centre of the room and there were lights everywhere, and they were far too bright and awful for him to focus. Everything felt hazy.

He was sat down on a slab of hard cushion and gently shoved into a lying position. As soon as the hands let go of him, he jolted up, with the full intention to swing his legs over the medical bed he was in and to make a run for it, but he was grabbed again, this time with gloved hands, and then there was a needle being pressed into the back of his hand and swiftly taped down. He stared at it in shock, eyes tracing the tube that led to some sort of IV. Pale pink liquid was seeping through the tube towards his hand.

He reeled back and grasped at the tape, fingertips not quite finding the end of the tape before his hand was pulled back and forced behind his back. He watched with horror as the liquid streamed through the needle and into his hand. It was immediately numb, his hand useless and immovable by his side.

He was ushered into a lying position again and this time he stayed, heart hammering in his chest and he desperately tried to focus on something other than the creeping deadness throughout his arm. A masked figure came into his line of sight, interrupting the near perfect pattern of ceiling tiles far above him. It was a woman, judging from the strands of brown hair trailing from her plain bun. A surgical mask concealed her features, but she had warm eyes that almost soothed Aleks.

“Mr. Marchant,” she started in an accent he couldn’t quite place. “You’ve been selected to take part in Rapture Trial #211. If a success, this will save Rapture from fall. Exciting, hm?” Although it was impossible to tell, Aleks supposed she may’ve smiled then before she leant back and began relaying indecipherable figures to her co-workers around the room.

“What…” He tried to ask, but the numbness had reached one side of his neck and was making it difficult to speak.

She shushed him harshly and continued relaying information, but now it had become terms Aleks could nearly understand.

“Operation will begin at sixteen hundred hours, when the numbness has entirely set in. Slug will be implanted at 15 minutes past the hour, and operation shall end shortly thereafter. Subject will need recovery in three centralised areas…” Her voice trailed off as a consuming feeling of artificial sleepiness seemed to engulf Alek’s mind. His free hand was let go and it slumped on the table as he lolled his head back on the bed. His eyes rolled back in his head before he closed his eyes, embracing the cold reality of dreamless sleep.

“Think we can reach the bathysphere in time?” Trevor asked after the group had been walking for an additional few hours. They were resting by a since closed until further notice – which James supposed would mean permanently given the state of Rapture – dress store. They had perched on the display stage poised next to the door behind since broken glass in abominable silence until he had spoken up, followed by a quick, “If it’s still docked, I mean.”

Lindsey was the one to answer with a rigid shrug. “I hope so,” she coughed, glancing to James before looking away again to reload her gun like she had been doing in a loop for the entirety of the time they had been resting.

It was clear they were all thinking of Aleks. Jakob had pacing back and forth in the cramped display booth, stepping over mutilated mannequins as he thoughtfully turned upon reaching each wallpapered wall. Asher was flipping the red tonic in his hand, dangerously close to dropping it and losing all of the substance, but James supposed that could be one of his intentions. Lindsey was fixatedly fiddling with her gun, reloading it and turning the safety on and off in rapid succession. It unnerved him slightly. Trevor had just been… staring into nothing.

James cleared his throat and stood, ignoring how flakes of glass fluttered down to land on his shoes, landing like teardrops.

“We should get going,” And then, accompanied with an adjustment of his collar. “Just in case that bathysphere is close to leaving.”

So the rest of the group stood and they began their treacherous walk again. It was somehow lonely without Aleks’ constant reassurances and insights and awkward, stilted conversation starters. Now they were just hollow corpses of their former selves, washed up by the tide.

God, he missed him.

So much so that after turning a corner and being greeted by Andrew Ryan’s face sternly talking through the thick glass of a television screen from the window of an electrics store that James withdrew his gun, checked it had ammo, and promptly fired into the glass. It managed to shatter the glass and the next few bullets broke the screen and distorted the image, warbling Andrew Ryan’s face until the screen blacked out. It was a childish move, and James knew it, but it felt good to watch Ryan fade away through several bullet holes.

Lindsey sighed.

“You done?” She deadpanned, and James nodded slowly before shoving the gun back into his pocket and gently nudging away the bullet shells gathered at his feet. She nodded and, to his surprise, offered him a slightly strained smile. “It’s gonna be okay. Okay?”

“Okay,” he murmured, crossing his arms and continuing to walk until they reached a square of sorts. It was nice and familiar – where they had agreed to meet before the attack on the government headquarters. They had sat on a bench, quietly discussing plans. That bench was now destroyed, but the sentiment remained. Kind of.

And there the building was. It’s once smooth grey exterior was splattered with crusting blood at one corner, it’s doors propped open by a chair. That was dangerous. But they kept walking, stopping in the doorway. James looked to Trevor for confirmation, greeted with a sure nod. And then he stepped inside, shoes meeting the red and gold carpet as they padded across the carpet, led by James. He called the elevator, pressing the bronze button with a much more confident air than what was actually there, and waited for it to arrive.

In the meanwhile, he turned, and observed the rest of the group, first focusing on Trevor.

“What floor is the bathysphere on?”

“Third. On the floor that – that me and Aleks used to work on.” His expression softened, and then the doors were sliding open behind James and they shuffled into the elevator. Jakob stood rigidly in the corner, and James was sharply reminded of his strange fear of elevators, remembers arguing about him back in the warehouse, over half-drunk pints of beer – _elevators are just scary!_ prompting a _no they’re not!_ – and instantly feels an indescribable feeling in his chest. Lindsey stands with her back to the doors next to Trevor, and she’s softly smiling at him, eyes crinkled and almost expectant eyebrows raised. Asher stands with his back against the mirror, curved awkwardly against the bar there. He speaks for the first time in a while.

“Think I’m gonna miss this place.”

“What’s to miss?”

He scoffs with a smile, shoulders coming up with a smile.

“Not  you, that’s for sure.”

James tries to keep it together, he really does, but Asher is nearly laughing through his grin and Jakob is smiling, and then it’s just impossible. He laughs.

It feels awful – Aleks is suffering somewhere, but here they are, a bunch of idiots nearly crying with laughter in a rickety elevator on their way to departure. The doors slide open eventually, though, and the laughter dies as they catch sight of the floor ahead. It’s sterile and white, only interrupted by cream doors and a ticket stamping machine, accompanied by rows of pockets designed for employee cards. James moves out of the elevator first and takes a few steps towards the pockets. His eyes trace down the cards and eventually he makes it to ‘M’. Three from the beginning is Aleksandr Marchant, teal card sporting a slightly blurry photo of him, only with brown hair and a rigid gaze. He  looks at it for a moment.

Then he closes his hand and crumples it in his palm.

It was better to forget.

Trevor was leading the group now, down a blank corridor. They pass employee lockers and James is half-tempted to break into Aleks’, but the card in his palm cuts into the skin and he disregards the impulse, instead focusing on the approaching bathysphere dock. Trevor reaches it first and presses a red button, causing the door to creak open.

They stand for a moment and stare at it.

The bathysphere was nothing special – pretty standard, actually. But to them it must’ve looked like a suite.

Jakob stepped in first, followed by Lindsey, who stepped up onto the seat and immediately inspected the upper luggage compartment, hands finally landing on something. It was a simple grey box. She opened it, and a variety of items were shown to have been concealed. It had first aid supplies, a flask of freshwater, and a tin of crackers. She closed the box slowly and slid it under the seat, giving James a reassured nod.

Trevor followed them and sat down, hands loose in his lap as he stared at the floor. He supposed bathyspheres must hold bad memories now, considering that James had tried to kill him in one only days prior.

Asher hesitated, but shook James’ hand firmly – thankfully not the one holding Aleks’ card -  and stepped inside shortly thereafter, running a hand through his hair and sitting beside Trevor, mumbling something to him which was met with a light laugh.

James looked at them with a fondness he couldn’t quite explain. They were his friends – a family. He almost resented their departure from Rapture, leaving an unfinished cause behind them as well as a closeness compelled by the deep sea on every side of them. He idly wondered if they would stay together once topside. Lindsey held out a hand to him, and he almost took it, he almost stepped inside, he almost watched Trevor push the button, he almost watching the bathysphere rise, he almost escaped.

But then he thought of Aleks.

Aleks, with his awful blonde hair and his big brown eyes and his awkward laughter and his shiny shoes and perfect shirts and his bedroom and his kisses, all over his face. He thought about Aleks’ hands in his hair and how he looked when he slept, mouth slightly open and cheek pressed against the pillow. He thought about his voice, how it sometimes broke and how he would mumble or voice incomplete thoughts. He thought about how his skewed grin and his raised eyebrows, about that stubble he got when he didn’t shave, how he looked covered in blood, his horrified eyes frantically searching for James. He thought about how he had hurt Aleks, how his hands had met his in rough punches and soft caresses. How he had loved Aleks.

So he reached inside, slammed his hand on the button and pushed Lindsey back when she lunged to keep the door open. She stumbled back, eyes narrowed, and she yelled something. It was muffled by the bathysphere door closing with a resigning _thump_. Lindsey threw a fist back and hit it, as if the force would propel it open, but the water beneath it was already bubbling, and then they were sinking. The bathysphere disappeared, along with his friends. His family.

James took a step back, rolled his shoulders, and took his gun from his pocket, loading it quickly with what ammo he had – which was running low. Then he turned – and was greeted with the sight of two stunned scientists, medical masks dangling from their face and mouths parted in quiet surprise.

James raised his arm, and fired a warning shot into the ceiling, as if on instinct.

“Where is he?” He yelled. He knew he must look like a maniac, hair wild at his shoulder and angry eyes searching them for some sort of sign, but that seemed to work, because they took a hasty step back, eyes scanning him as if they were going to run. “Hey! Where is Aleksandr?”

They seemed to struggle for words, and that was the reasoning behind why James raised his gun and fired a shot into one of their heads. It was a man, with short dark hair and kind eyes, but it was necessary. His accomplice, a young woman with long blonde hair watched him fall and whimpered, finally speaking.

“Just down the hall – just down there!” She squeaked, covering her face with one hand and pointing behind her with the other.

James immediately marched forwards, passing her. He considered just reaching his goal but, against his better judgement, he stepped back.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. She didn’t reply, still cowering.

So, he continued, stalking down the hallway. He stopped at the first door, peering into the window. It was some sort of break room – nothing of interest, so he moved on.

The next room was slightly more interesting. It was something of a lab – or once was, because now it was shrouded in darkness, only spotlighted by one lightbulb dangling from a string. Much to his hesitation, James opened the door as quietly as possible, moving in with his gun raised next to his face, scanning the room the best he could. He spotted a light switch somewhere to his left and moved one hand to flick it, startling when sterile lights whirred on overhead and engulfed the room in brightness. The first thing James focused on was the chalkboard in front of him, propped against the wall. It had manic writing scrawled on it, barely readable but that wasn’t James’ concern.

His concern was the picture of Aleks right in the middle. It was old, even older than the ID – Aleks looked to still be a teenager at the time of publishing. James frowned, and knelt to try to decipher the writing. Something about transferral was directly beneath him, accompanied by an arrow pointing to a detailed drawing of what could first be perceived as an ordinary slug, only disregarded by the clear writing over it – ‘ADAM SLUG’.

James stood and stepped backwards, continuing through the lab. He next stopped at a tank, which seemed to be empty, water gurgling through a filter at the surface. James tapped the glass absentmindedly, and then the door swung open, accompanied by someone’s light conversation. James panicked for a moment, but ducked behind a nearby filing cabinet, wedged between the wall and the steel of the cabinet. He tilted his head up and tried to breathe as evenly as possible, watching as the scientist trod through the room, slipping behind a curtain and humming quietly as they seemed to retrieve something. After a moment, they moved past the curtain again and exited out of the door, closing it with a click.

James stepped out of his hiding place and took daunting steps towards the door, pressing his back to the wood before turning his head to peer out of the window. It was clear.

He opened the door carefully and stepped outside, glimpsing the end of the scientist’s coat as he disappeared around the corner. James took hurried steps to catch up, stopping at the corner and cautiously looking around it to watch the scientist disappearing into a room, one they had passed without a second thought.

He rushed ahead as soon as the door closed, stopping just short of it. It was with a shaky hand that he clutched the doorknob, gun gripped tightly in his hand and feet poised. He thought of Aleks, turned the doorknob, and the door swung open. He stepped into the doorway, and was faced with the sight of a plastic blue curtain blocking his view. The door closed with a near-silent click, and James practically scurried to squat behind the curtain, using a hand to peel it back only slightly and to peer at the sight.

He counted six people on the floor, all preoccupied, all hopefully unarmed. Two were observing some sort of heart rate monitor and one was handing supplies to the other three scientists surrounding a body on a surgical bed. Aleks.

James craned to see him, but it was impossible.

It was with anger that James moved his hand, aimed carefully, and shot one of the scientists crowded around the heart monitor in the head. He fell immediately, and it was chaos from there. James drew back the curtain entirely and stepped through, shooting the next nearest one in the knee, and then in the abdomen, leaving them to bleed out on the floor. Then he targeted her apparent partner – judging from their matching wedding bands – and shot him in the neck, wincing as blood surged out.

Then there were the three around Aleks of which two, although clearly panicking, were still shakily continuing their work, hands clutching equipment with tight grasps. James couldn’t shoot blindly now – there was a clear risk that he could injure Aleks, and so he neared them in strong strides, shooting the first one, a young man, clearly terrified in the thigh, causing him to fall with a scream. Then there was the older man next to him, of whom James instead decided to tackle, and who fell to the floor, although he did clutch onto James’ leg, pressing the scalpel he had been holding into his calf. James practically yelped, and only then did he shoot downwards, hitting the man directly in the top of his head.

Although fully aware of the remaining scientist, who was calmly continuing work on Aleks, James ducked down and tugged the scalpel out of his leg, in the meantime kicking the man’s corpse away from him. The scalpel, now bloody in his hand, was instinctively flung in the opposite direction. James whipped his head up, hair flicking over his head, and stood up straight, gun already aimed towards the remaining scientist.

It was a woman, he could see that much. Her stern eyes and brown hair peeking out from under a medical cap told her that much, as well as the scalpel in her forearm, leaking blood onto her coat. She had stopped working and held a gun instead, nearly the same as James’. She was pointing it directly at him.

“Hey, this is the end,” James said weakly, eyes skimming her for any way to get out of the situation. He knew that shooting her would lead to her shooting him, and Aleks would just die there. He couldn’t let that happen. He still refused to look at Aleks though, although he was vaguely aware that there was a thin cloth concealing his features. “Put the gun down.”

She scowled and in one swift motion, swung the gun down to aim at Aleks’ chest.

“ _You_ put the gun down,” She glowered. “There are six police officers on their way right now, you think you can get out of this alive?”

James tensed, eyes flicking down to Aleks’ chest, and then back to her.

Then he fired.

All thing’s considered, it was good aim. He supposed his subconscious had figured that if he shot her right between the eyes, she wouldn’t have time to shoot Aleks. It was a near fool-proof plan. But as soon as the shot fired, she pulled the trigger.

James felt like he saw the scene in slow motion. First, he watched his bullet rid itself of the shell and plunge directly in her forehead, blood spurting out before it began to ooze, dribbling down the bridge of her nose. The exit wound was marked by the way her head jolted back, loose hair bouncing at the impact. She fell, and then James could watch her bullet. It fired and only travelled a short distance before it hit Aleks directly in the chest. There was no blood then, not until it began to soak his shirt, only appearing on his skin where it was visible, through the cut in his shirt leading to the skin they had obviously been operating on judging by the neat stitches there, right on his abdomen.

James sharply gasped as soon as the world rushed back into motion, and he immediately clutched Aleks’ shoulders, ignoring the thump as the final scientist’s body crumpled to the ground. He lifted the material from Aleks’ face, grimacing at the sight. He was greying, and blood had begun to trickle from the corner of his mouth, streaming down his cheek and dripping onto the table.

The chest wound was now bleeding profusely even as James placed his hands on it, applying pressure like an amateur would. He didn’t even realise he was crying until a sob left him involuntarily, whole body jerking with the shock of it.

“Aleksandr… c’mon,” he feebly tried, hands becoming coated in blood, Aleks’ blood, now. “Please, you can’t fuckin’… don’t die on me, asshole, okay?”

His heart monitor was slowing. James panicked, lightly batting Aleks’ face with his hand even as he applied even more pressure to the wound, heart hammering in his chest. He eventually ripped the IV out of the back of Aleks’ hand as he saw it, throwing it aside with a shaky exhale.

Aleks hand twitched ever so slightly at that, and James’ heart leapt. He leant down and kissed him softly, more of a brush of lips than anything –

And then he flatlined.

The noise was a constant drone, one that made James stop. He relieved the pressure on the wound, hands now just resting on his chest even as the blood continued surging out of him, and he placed his forehead against Aleks’, closing his eyes and grimacing as the tears came out full volume, wetting both his and Aleks’  cheeks. He sat there for a while, hands eventually moving to tangle in Aleks’ hair, fingers intertwining around blonde locks and wetting them with blood.

“I’m so sorry, Aleksandr,” he cried, shoulders shaking with sobs as he straightened up, chest aching. Aleks looked angelic on that table, lips stained with blood and cheeks glistening with James’ tears, wetting his eyelashes in the process. But he wasn’t James’ Aleks – he wasn’t the Aleks that tripped over his own feet or that drank perhaps a little too much for his own good once in a while. He wasn’t the casually withdrawn Aleks that would still cackle at stupid jokes James made. He wasn’t the Aleks that kissed him on a drowsy night, illuminated only by the charming light of the deep sea around them. He wasn’t _his_ Aleks.

After a few moments, James huffed and let go of him, kneeling down to pick up his gun and tuck it into his pocket. He couldn’t look at Aleks anymore.

So he moved, taking a hasty step back and wiping his tears away with his sleeve as he moved around the heart monitor, ignoring the bright red line there. He padded across the tile and placed a hand on the doorknob, swinging open the door. Before he could step away from his grief, his fault, his Aleks, a croaky voice called to him.

“James?”

James whirled around, hair hitting him in the face at the movement as he faced the room again.

At first, he blamed it on anguish. He was hearing things, driven by denial and selfishness. Aleks was dead. And there was no movement in the room – so after a moment, he sighed and turned back around, swinging open the door yet again and nearly, nearly stepping out until he heard the voice again, this time slightly louder.

“Nova.”

James startled at that and cautiously padded across the room, heart feeling as if it was in his throat. He walked around the heart monitor, peering at it – it was still flat – but the voice was definitely real. So, it was with fright that James stepped up to the bed and, to his surprise, met the softly glowing eyes of Aleks.

It frightened him – his eyes were a shocking yellow, his pupil and sclera not even visible anymore. The gold had overtaken all human in those once dark eyes. But then the fright was overtaken by shock, anger, and eventually, joy. It took a moment to process in his mind that this was actually Aleks who was grinning up at him, eyes squinted and teary. James swallowed, blinked rapidly, and then placed shaky hands behind Aleks’ back to lift him into a half-sitting position.

“You’re alive,” James whispered, voice catching on what was definitely not the beginning of another sob.

And then Aleks kissed him, and it wasn’t a good kiss, by any means – it tasted of blood and had to be broken when Aleks broke into a coughing fit, but he was alive and in James’ arms and that was more than enough. Eventually, the heart monitor started up again into a slightly-too-fast beat, but it was something, and also the cue for James to clutch Aleks’ middle and to hoist him into a sitting position.

“Aleks, we have to go,” he said hurriedly, slinging Aleks’ arm around his shoulder and gently tugging him off the bed so that he was standing, entirely dependent on James’ grip. “Know where there’s any other bathyspheres?”

“Next floor up…?” Aleks responded, sounding unsure, but it was enough to make James nod and begin to walk, supporting Aleks as he limped alongside him. They made it out the door eventually, entering the corridor once more. Aleks winced at the light, blinking rapidly but James was already making his way to the elevator, only interrupted by a door bursting open from somewhere behind them.

“Wilson!” roared a menacing voice.

James turned despite Aleks’ groan of protest, and met the glare of that goddamn leading officer, who was marching towards them with one very large shotgun in his hands. James swore under his breath, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the gun. It was useless – he’d never be able to support Aleks and shoot at the same time. It was almost a miracle when Aleks lifted his head.

“James… hey, James,” He whispered as James picked up the pace.

“What?”

“I think I can move. We should fuckin’ run,”

James started at that. They were nearly upon the elevator, but the police officer was nearing, and would catch them soon enough. So, he nodded, and gently released his grasp on Aleks. He was right – he could move, but his limbs were obviously still heavy and sedate – so it was with much hesitation that James counted under his breath for them to sprint for it.

The run felt much longer than it should’ve. About halfway to the elevator, the shotgun was fired. It missed James at first, hitting the wall and smashing a few tiles. And then, because apparently they had the worst luck in the world, the bullet ricocheted off the wall and managed to graze James’ side. It was by no means a major injury, but it stung enough to slow James down as he stumbled, clutching the wound and hissing with pain. Aleks had reached the elevator and was hitting the button frantically.

James could hear the shotgun reloading, and thankfully the elevator had been called, and the doors were sliding open. He could see his reflection in the walls and also the shotgun aimed at the back of his head. Aleks lunged inside the elevator and the doors were closing, sliding shut and nearly crushing James when he finally managed to slip into the space. He turned just in time to see the officer aim and fire.

He really did think that was the end.

But the door jammed ever so slightly, shuddering in it’s place and blocking the bullet path, causing the bullet to hit the door and reflect off the bronze surface. It whizzed through the air, finally reaching it’s target when it hit the officer right between his eyes.

The doors closed.

James exhaled shakily, and became faintly aware that Aleks was clutching his arm, eyes wide. He couldn’t quite look at Aleks yet, but he was quite sure Aleks had already seen himself, judging by how he released his arm and took a step towards the mirror, hand moving to trace his grey skin. He blinked once, twice, and James brought himself to look at Aleks’ reflection.

His eyes looked better – he could sort of see his iris behind the yellow film on the surface of his eyes – and his skin was resorting to its original skin tone, but he supposed it must be an icy shock to Aleks. He moved a hand to trace the stitches on his abdomen.

“They made me into one of those things,” he whispered, mostly to himself. “A little sister,”

James wanted to say something, something brave or reassuring or even kind, but he just offered a quiet _why_ , and he knew his voice shook even as he tried to focus on peeling the dried blood off his palms, eyes narrowed.

“It makes sense, huh? Bigger supply of ADAM, more control of Rapture. It was a setup,” he shrugged almost nonchalantly, but James could see the real upset in his face.

They stood there for a moment when the doors slid open to the next floor, and the bathyspheres were right there, but then four other police officers burst through the stairwell doors and then Aleks was running, tugging James along to reach the bathyspheres. His gun fell from his pocket and slid across the floor, gone forever, They eventually made it, and the officers were nearing, but Aleks tugged the bathysphere door open and pushed James in, causing him to land on his knees in the middle of the submarine, grasping at his wound.

Aleks stood outside and turned to face the officers, and James gasped helplessly as he began to step forwards, hardly flinching when a bullet was fired that entered his stomach and exited out his back, sending blood spurting onto the clean tiles of the floor. He nodded at the other officers’ stunned expressions, shaking hands seeming to refuse to shoot, and then turned and opened the bathysphere door again. As he did, the staircase shuddered and through the doors burst a Big Daddy, helmet glowing red.

James looked away.

The door swung shut and Aleks silently pressed the button, watching as the bathysphere sunk until the hallway was out of sight. He moved to kneel next to James, and he just hugged him. They sat there for a moment, in a constant embrace, until James leant back.

“How did you know?” He murmured, hand finding Aleks’, which he clutched like a lifeline. Aleks’ face was dark, illuminated only by the light of the ocean.

“I didn’t.”

They were quiet as the bathysphere floated through Rapture, fingers intertwined as they watched the vast city pass beneath them.

It was funny; Aleks had seen the city more times than he could remember – he memorised each building, each advertisement, each monument. But it was like he was seeing it for the first time, eyes tracing every bridge and every skyscraper, reading every advertisement and smiling gently as a whale swam past, temporarily blocking their view as it cooed in deep song. They passed the monument of Andrew Ryan, and he quietly scoffed as it’s chiselled face swept past the bathysphere route. But then they were rising, and soon enough the city was out of view, only a thick white fog of light on the sea floor.

Aleks turned back to James, eyes only a little watery.

“I love you,” he whispered, and then the bathysphere shuddered, practically stopping. “You have to be _fucking_ kidding me,”

“Hey, hey,” James said, smiling, and then the vehicle started up again, surging through the water even faster. “I love you too.”

Aleks grinned, and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowzah, longest chapter so far!
> 
> i just real quick wanna thank everyone who left comments/kudos/even read this fic, it means the world to me that people actually enjoy my stuff :o xoxo it's been a long and sometimes exhausting five-ish month ride, but the support has always been massive, so thank you so much!
> 
> talk to me on tumblr @powellio!
> 
> final part coming soon!


	15. both sides now

****

Later, the bathysphere would break surface, gurgling as the waves broke over its roof. It would eventually find itself in Maine. The beach it washed up on wasn’t empty – the contrary, actually. Across the sand spanned hundreds, perhaps thousands, of weary-eyed adults and laughing children, all spread out and anxiously speaking to town sheriffs or napping on the coarse ground.

The bathysphere door would swing open, slowly but surely, and  Aleks would find himself face down in the sand, wincing as the cold waves lapped at his face. There would be a warm pressure on his back, which, upon turning with a soft grunt, would be Lindsey, pressing a cloth to the bullet wound there. She would smile at him, eyes crinkling up familiarly as she helped him stand. He could see the concern in her face as he opened his eyes, the soft yellow reflecting onto his cheekbones. James would already be awake, pressing an old rag against his own wound and softly speaking to Jakob and Asher as they sat on the beach, disregarding how the waves dampened their clothes.

Aleks would approach with the help of Lindsey’s hand on his shoulder, and James would stand, eyes brown and watery and _happy_ , and he hugs him, murmuring something into his shoulder. Then, Asher would stand and hug Aleks too, followed by Jakob. Trevor found them later, when the sun was nearly setting, bundles of food in his hand that the locals had been giving out in some help to the mysterious arrivals from the sea. They sat there on the beach for the night, small fires lighting up their faces as they sipped at lukewarm bottles of cider and ate out of china bowls passed out by elderly ladies who would mumble prayers for Aleks, not quite looking him in the eyes.

They would settle, though.

Asher and Jakob would move into a room above a boutique, and although it was small and quaint, they loved it. They would both attend the local university in the hopes of doing _something_ , as they eloquently told Aleks one night by the shore. Trevor would stay, for a while, but around October, he knocked on their doors, offered them a tight hug, and told them he _needs to go and find something_. He drove away, calling from Michigan, Detroit, Ohio, and, eventually, California on his way. He would become a photographer – nothing well-renowned – but he would take the most lovely photos of starfish on the sand, of groups of friends cheering from their beach houses, of himself, fishing by a lake. He would send the developed photos in the mail to them every so often, with notes and drawings scrawled on the back. Lindsey would run for office and win – becoming mayor - before she would be impeached for controversy regarding her support for civil rights. But she would keep fighting.

James and Aleks stayed in Maine.

They moved into an old fishing shack, buying cheap furniture from markets and their neighbours until they had a half-decent home. Aleks would work in a small office focusing on design for advertisements on billboards, and James would be in office just like Lindsey, organising strikes and marches and protests however he could. They would adopt two dogs, Ein and Mishka, and a cat, Celia, all strays from Rapture that washed up on the beach without an owner. They would go dancing on weekends, grocery shopping on Mondays and Thursdays, and would go to the beach every Sunday. It became a sort of tradition.

In the spring of 1963, a doctor would contact them. A Dr Tenenbaum, of Rapture. She would want to investigate the effects of the Little Sister implantation on Aleks and, to their combined relief, remove the slug as soon as possible. The operation would go underway in early 1964, and would be a relative success. Aleks would wake up in bed the day after and see James and Lindsey in the seats nearby, a bouquet of flowers placed neatly on the bedside table and a new scar on his abdomen. The yellow eyes, now more of a barely-noticeable amber, persisted.

They would get married, eventually, in 1966. It was in secret – Topside wasn’t quite as welcoming as Rapture was, but they wore their best shirts and listened to speeches from their closest friends, and cried and laughed over glasses of cheap champagne. They would dance to a cheerful song, giggling in each other’s arms until the sun rose in the sky and they walked home in quiet comfort, even as the freezing sea breeze whipped their faces.

They would also get a grave for Brett. A simple one; nothing too intricate or obvious. They visited it every two months or so, James more than anyone else.

They would travel for marches and speeches and rallies all throughout the country, packing into a small car and driving down highways for days.

Life was good.

Sometime in 1976, Aleks left for Russia. He would kiss James goodbye at the door, suitcase clutched tightly in his hand before he closed the door to the taxi and drove off, bound for the airport. He would be on some sort of strange mission – to see his parents, he said. James suspected it was for closure, and so he let him go.

The plane would go down somewhere in the Atlantic.

Nobody’s fault.

James would receive the telegram a week later, a yellow envelope in the mail stamped neatly with a red stamp. The grief hit him like a bullet.

The funeral was short and brief.

James placed roses on the grave and went home and mourned.

But before all of that, before the death and the sorrow – was life. Life, lived to its fullest for two individuals who had been through so much trauma and horror. Life was twirling around a cramped music hall, sunbathing on the beach, splashing in the ocean, babysitting for their neighbours, shopping for groceries, picking flowers for one another, burning the eggs for breakfast, yelling in the kitchen, cleaning windows, reading the same book, watching terrible movies, learning how to fish, walking the dogs, singing along to songs on the radio, trying to roller-skate, and loving each other with all of their might.

And before all that, was-

“Official statement came in today,” James murmured as he shuffled into the kitchen, shirt far too big for him and hair wavy around his shoulders. His smile was sleepy as he met Aleks’ gaze. It was six in the morning, far too early for either of them. James grabbed an apple and sat down opposite Aleks, who was lazily chewing on some toast. He slid the newspaper across the table, to which Aleks picked it up and inspected the article – a small column, filled entirely with a speech from some mayor or governor. The headline was bold – THEY CAME FROM THE SEA; OFFICIAL STANCE RELEASED.

Aleks shook his head, passing it back. “You read it; I don’t know if I could.”

James gave him a look, but straightened out the paper and began to speak.

“These visitors from the shore were highly unprecedented, and perhaps unwelcome.”

Aleks stopped chewing and ducked his head, exhaling through his nose. He seemed to shake his head slightly, eyes cast to the white paint of the table.

James continued.

“But the hospitality and kindness of the locals inside this deliverance should be duly noted as we greet and embrace these newcomers into our little town.”

Aleks blinked back into motion, moving a hand across the table to place on top of James’.

“Our thankfulness for the safety of these people…”

_A mother sprinted across the beach, slipping past crowds of people before she could scoop up her child, holding her close as she sunk to her knees, sobbing with joy._

“Must not blind us to the fact that what has brought them here must be considered to be a major political, structural, and economical disaster.”

_Rapture flooded, 1600 miles away and 1.3 miles deep._

“And we must expect much trauma and investigation to follow…”

_Asher opened the door to a sheriff with a notepad and reassuring eyes, who would question him and Jakob with as much caution as possible._

“But, we will welcome these people to the end, and we will treat them with utmost honour in our little town.”

_Lindsey stepped up to a podium, clutching her speech tight in her hands._

“We will welcome them from the seas and the shore…”

_The ocean lapped at the sand._

“We will regard them with growing affection and embracement in the air…”

_Volunteers collected money for the newly homeless in the streets._

“We shall conduct the situation with honour –“

“What?” Aleks asked, biting into his toast.

“We shall conduct the situation with honour, whatever the cost may be – we shall show these visitors warmth and generosity,

And if authority dare question their presence, we shall protest on the shore and in the streets. We shall argue to our graves; we shall refuse to surrender these innocent lives,

And even if, which I shall not believe, these people were malicious and malignant in their past lives,

Then our small town by the sea, armed and guarded by men, women, and children, would carry on the struggle,

Until, in due time, this new world, with all its stubbornness and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.”

Aleks smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> firstly - thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!! it has been such an honor to work on this fic and i have been and still am so thrilled by the feedback it got!!
> 
> thank you to everyone who bookmarked or commented or left kudos or even took the time to click this fic and check it out, you're all the best!!
> 
> i thought maybe i'd link some bts stuff for this fic for fun and stuff :o:
> 
> my pinterest board that inspired descriptions and stuff: https://pin.it/ujevudrxyjxwjd
> 
> the playlist i created whilst creating the outline for this fic: http://suan.fm/mix/BJ9Jen9ZX (i know its lame I KNOW)
> 
> and also to add onto the playlist all of the chapter names were songs that either appear in the bioshock franchise or are just from around the era and theyre all pretty good and link to the chapter content so ;)
> 
> and yeah
> 
> but thank you so much!!! xoxox
> 
> im actually really sad to be finishing this fic :(
> 
> you can find me @powellio on tumblr :)
> 
> bye!


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